Now is the Autumn of My Discontent

"Autumn is the time of year, that I should like to meet you here

to find when you cross my face

To dream of what tomorrow may be despite what yesterday was

to have your company.

Can I wait, here with you?"

Jason Harwell, "Can I Wait?"

No season makes me feel more alive than the fall. Something about Autumn's flames

that ignite the trees that makes me realize that all the old is being ushered out in a glorious

display to bring in new life. While we have endure cold and darkness and barrenness,

it will come.

About a month ago I was playing my first wedding. I've been more than I can remember, but this was the first time I've been a wedding musician. I found that a little surprising as I have several friends and am a competent musician. As I talked with my friend who I played guitar for, I was reminded not much of life has gone according to plan.

This semester is one example. I have had not been able to cover my living expenses with the money coming in from work. While I am extremely grateful to have two jobs that I absolutely love, hours have been scant and it's been difficult when the red in my register overpowers the black. I had to close an account because the numbers were on the wrong side for too long. I haven't been able to pay my phone bill for a couple months now. I'm still not sure how I'm going to pay for seminary.

And I know I'm not alone in facing any uncertainty. A quick perusing of any news scroll, or a glance at a paper, or just a quick browsing of a facebook or twitter feed will tell you there's a great deal of unrest and restlessness in the world. From the famine in the Horn of Africa, to the financial crises in Greece, Ireland, Spain, USA, to the political unrest in the Middle East and former Soviet republics, it is easy to see the shadow.

Inspite of all this, I can't help but to find myself unflaggingly optimistic.

This doesn't mean that I bury my head in the sand, oblivious to my responsibilities, nor to the oppression in the world. It means I can work to fulfill my responsibilities and against the affliction knowing there's meaning behind it.

I know how the story ends and it ends well. It doesn't get a fairytale, happily ever after ending, but a very real closure into an eternal beginning. A beginning where heaven comes down to earth and all that is old is burned away ushering in a new glorious existence. A beginning where all wrongs are accounted for, and all rights are rewarded. A beginning where all tears and pain are gone, and there will be no more darkness. This beginning has been in the works since before the beginning of anything.

This gives backbone to my optimism. It's not an empty optimism that sugar coats the harshness of life now, or that whistles Dixie in the dark, but a very real promise of our best life in the world to come. No matter the difficulties now, they will resolve.

Jonathan Edwards once described this life as such, "Our good things can never be taken away. Our bad things are being used for our good, and our best things are still to come."

When I look at things from this perspective, things aren't so bad. I have two jobs that I absolutely love that use my gifts and strengths. I get to work with great people, who need what I can share with them. I'm in a relationship that's far better than any of my previous attempts and it gets richer every day.

And no matter what happens, everything's going to be okay. If I lose it all tomorrow, the sun will still rise. And if it doesn't then that new beginning all ready started.

"I'm sure forever never meant, that we just glide on till the end without some tragedies.

So let's just put our troubles down, and listen for the quiet sound of everlasting peace

Can I wait, here with you?"

Jason Harwell--Alive in the Fall

4AM...

"There's a fire in my soul"--Ridgely

4Am and I'm sitting in Waffle House by the St. Louis airport waiting for a 7am flight. I was at this Waffle House the first day of Urbana09 just before my tribe came in.

Victor Hugo just said to me, "The only spectacle greater than the sky is the interior of the soul."

Its humbling to look at the sky, especially at night. The psalmist tells us, "The heavens declare the glory of the Lord."

I dream of flying to the Pleiades. I long to soar through the supernovae. To delve the mysteries of dark matter.

It is nothing short of epic.

It would be devastating and dehumanizing to look into the sky and feel dwarfed without the knowledge that it was created by a loving God. As grand as the stars are, as brilliant and magnificent, and as immeasurable and vast and countless as they are, God still loves us more.

It was you and I created in His image, not the Orion Nebula.

It was us He chose to love, redeem, and sanctify not Eta Carina.

It is our souls that He binds together with an even tighter bond than the gravity that binds the Pleiades.

What deeper connection than two souls bound together in their Creator.

For the soul is that kindle of the imperishable Secret Fire ignited within us and love is the warmth and light that connection makes. As the great Bill Mallonee sings:

"Love's the little bit of God there for all to know.

Love's the everlasting arms, that never do let go."

It was in love that God promised us to reign with Him likes the stars above, and provided the means for us to do so, and that is by His own body and blood. His very own Son.

"To write the poem of the human consciousness," continues Hugo, "of one only man, even the most insignificant of men, would be to swallow up all epics in a superior and definitive epic."