When does Fall start for you?
For me, it begins once I start seeing school buses again. Something about those big yellow frames just says Autumn to me – regardless of whatever the official date for fall is.
Even though Fall is on the other side of our upcoming Summer season, I look forward to it throughout the year. I love how each season seems to naturally bring on a spirit all its own. One of the other things I love about Fall is that after the bustle and buzz of Summer, we enter into a period of winding down before the world sleeps in Wintertime. We are given this gift, full of grace and anticipation, with enough time and pace to finally reflect on what our year has brought us. What our friends and family have offered us and how we’ve cherished them in turn. It brings a natural breath of thanksgiving and gratefulness that can otherwise be difficult to find elsewhere.
Speaking of thanksgiving and thankfulness, have you ever wondered why we celebrate Thanksgiving in November – well after all the crops have been harvested from the land? It seems a bit silly to celebrate a harvest that is already well and good past.
One of the things I’ve been practicing for several years now revolves around celebrating my own Celtic cultural heritage by observing my people’s own ancient holidays. As it just so happens, they have their own Thanksgiving holiday, called Mabon, each September 21st. This just makes so much more sense to me. Seeing as how it’s the original Thanksgiving, set during peak harvest time when all the sheer bounty of the land and the people are ripe for gathering and sharing – giving and sharing the first bits of harvest, whether it is an abundance of food, a shared sense of community, or even the fruits of seeds we have sown in our own personal lives months earlier.
In 2 Corinthians 9:6-15, Paul also writes on this notion of thanksgiving as an action flowing from the heart:
6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written:
“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever.”[a]
10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
Generosity as thoughtless as second nature – what a thought. The giving of tomatoes etc, a morning of bringing in crops of our lives. A time of slowing down and recognizing just how much sheer gift is all around us. It’s not just for Autumn, you know.
This is because we need to think of thankfulness as a radical perspective shift. It comes from bone-deep gratitude, recycling right back to knee-jerk generosity. And in doing so, finding a gift for each of us in Knowing God is God and that all is well. Very well. Just typing this fills me with a big sigh of relief which leads us right back to even more heartfelt generosity.
Why wait for Fall to breathe this new way of thinking and living into your life? Let us also anticipate the upcoming season of Thanksgiving in September by planting the sorts of seeds we wish to see grow, blossom, and bear fruit this Summer.
God bless,
– Ryan
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