Autumn Endings

I am all about adding, not subtracting.

I forget the importance of endings, the ceasing of what has always been done to make room for the new. God has created a rhythm of life in the change of seasons, the not rushing to quickly fill the emptiness.

This is a rhythm I am still learning. Why do I so quickly seek to fill the emptiness?

Oh, it is such a tension! Clinging to the point of ridiculousness and then jumping in too fast.

No resting. No reflecting.

No breathing.

“We don't need to fight [the seasons],” Adam S. McHugh writes in The Listening Life. “The seasons relieve us from the pressure to put on the same face and act the same way all year round.”

McHugh continues, “We can cycle through our own seasons of dormancy and new life, activity and quietness, celebration and sadness, blossom and harvest, openness and being closed, austerity and abundance.”

Autumn endings remind us of the importance of letting go.

In the desert, the Western Diamondbacks are preparing to hibernate. Kangaroo rats are stashing up seeds for the lean months ahead. Costa's hummingbirds are moving out altogether until rains return once again to the desert. With the exception of irrigated gardens, the soil for desert plants has dried out.

Nature enters into autumn endings in an established rhythm year after year.

Where are you this season? Are there things you are refusing to let slip into autumn endings? Are you squeezing tight? Holding on?

Grace as you finally let go.