Sermons

No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnal face.
John Donne

READING
Autumn Leaves – The Beauty of Change ~ Janet Hagerman I love autumn splendor! One of the best places for fall “leaf peeping” is Gibbs Gardens in north Georgia. Right now over 2,000 maple trees (over 100 varieties) are putting on a spectacular display. While beautiful to behold, there is an underlying scientific reason for this brilliant color – preparation for change -the next season of winter.

The leaf is the plant’s food factory. Chlorophyll is what gives leaves their green color. As summer ends, and days get shorter, the trees prepare for winter when the trees will rest, and live off the food they stored during the summer.
As the bright green fades away, we now see other vivid colors, which were present all along but not visible because they are covered up by the green chlorophyll.
The tree “knows” it must prepare for change, and it does so with regularity yet beautifully. It doesn’t complain about the change. It simply performs its duties regularly, with phenomenal beauty.

As the saying goes, the only thing for sure is change. Change, in our lives, is as dependable as the changing seasons. As we prepare for the inevitability of change let us do it with beauty and grace.

READING
“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?” ― Rumi

SERMON
Yesterday evening at 9:54 Eastern Time, we were, for a moment, at the still point; held in near-perfect balance between dark and light, equal shares of daytime and nighttime. Did you notice that moment? You may have been finishing up the details and chores of the day as you would any other Saturday. Perhaps you were taking the casserole for today’s potluck out of the oven or putting it into the refrigerator. Maybe you were brushing your teeth. Maybe you were or sitting quietly in prayer, meditation, or your daily gratitude practice. Maybe you were feeding a hungry infant or calming a sleepless child. Some of you, I imagine, were already fast asleep. A few of you, let’s be honest now, are just now realizing that, “Hey! today is the first full day of Autumn. Hallelujah!”

The still point. Balance. Breathe. Then, everything changes. The solar sytem and each of us can hold the still point of near-perfect balance only for a blink and then it passes and we are in a completely new place where we have never been before and will never be again. Change.

Autumn is my favorite time of year. The low slanting afternoon light is unique to Autumn. The fall colors are just beginning to paint the hillsides with breath-taking beauty. The temperature is already beginning to drop and a light frost appeared overnight. Gardens are harvested before a killing frost. At the shore, docks are pulled up and boats are pulled out of the water. Loons still their evening concert of calls as they prepare to depart to salt water for the winter. Bird songs are rare and soon many birds will fly south. The fawns of spring are loosing their spots. Trees are conserving their energy for the long cold winter and they concentrate their life force in the trunk and branches. Their leaves are released from the job of photosynthesis. They lose their green color leaving behind the brilliant colors beneath until they finally fall from the trees altogether. They carpet the forest floor with colors from green to red to gold to yellow and orange and then, eventually, they all turn brown and settle in to become earth.

Everything changes. In Autumn, nature seems to change at a furious pace – getting ready for winter is serious business. We know this too.
Autumn is so very beautiful.
How could anyone not pause and notice?

In nature, beauty is both calm and furious. Sometimes the beauty of life is terrifying. There is the calming beauty and the terrifying beauty – side by side all at once both true.

Did you all see photos from space of Hurricane Florence? Did you see the white funnel – brilliant and beautiful in its perfect spinning symmetry, and, at the same time, a terrible and terrifying power.
If we could see an arial view of Yellowstone National Park after the wildfire of 1988 – the largest fire in Yellowstone’s history – we would see devastation of that time and today, we see the beauty of the new life that has sprung up and is thriving after the enormous change the fire caused.

Without change, life ceases.

For us this is true.
A change in jobs.
A cross-country move.
The death of a loved one.
The birth of a loved one.
Financial success or failure.
A spiritual awakening.

Life events can change the course we have been on and we go in a completely unanticipated direction. Sometimes these changes are full of beauty and promise and excitement. Sometimes they are filled with fear and trembling. Sometimes both.

You will find in your order of service a copy of a drawing of a tree whose leaves are colored for Autumn rather than for summer.
Hand written across the top “There is a season for every change” and along the bottom “and for every change there is a season.”

This drawing came with a hand written letter dated 9/13/18 sent to h.o.m.e. in Orland.

Here is a portion of that letter ....

9/13/18
Hello my name is Katherine I am 31 years old and I need help more than ever before in my life I’ve spent my last two birthdays incarcerated I don’t really have a lot of hope left for my future ....
I get released in early November possibly the 14th
I know your motto is to help those who need it the most first

Well I’m pretty desperate for some place to go some compassion .. for even some conversation .....
Currently even a pen pal would be nice
So I know a lot of people think inmates are the lowest of the low but I know this to be untrue and for the most part we could all use a lot of help ...

Thank you for your time
Katie

Change. Something happened in Katie’s life that resulted in her spending many months at the Two Bridges Regional Jail here in Maine. A change she probably did not want. This change may have seemed more terrible than calm.
Change. Now, she may be released from jail in November.

She is wondering how she will deal with this change too. There is great beauty, I suspect, in the anticipation of release and regaining her independence. Yet, this change is also terrifying for her. She has no home. She has no job. She does not know what will happen to her or how to make sure she makes the best decisions for herself.

Katie is reaching out – trying to make the terrifying beauty of being released a more calm beauty. She asks for a place to come, a place to live for a little while. She offers to work in exchange for a place to sleep and food to eat. She asks for a way to keep herself busy and productive.

Katie asks for something else, something most of us take for granted – she as asks for kindness. For compassion. For conversation. For a pen pal.
These are the things she asks for from complete strangers, knowing that she is dependent on the kindness of strangers as she considers where she can go and what she can do when she is on her own again.

There is a beauty in kindness that is impossible to measure.
As Katie prepares for the change from inmate to independent woman, she asks for kindness, compassion, conversation, a letter from someone who knows only her name, but will call her by name.

I don’t know where Katie’s life will go in the next few months. I do not know if she will be released this fall or if she will be able to relocate to Orland. That is not within my scope of vision or even influence. What is in my vision is the picture of her Autumn tree. What is in my vision is her heart’s request for an act of kindness from a stranger. A card or a letter sent to her – personally.

Who will be that stranger?
I asked permission to share Katie’s letter with you this morning with the thought that among all of us we might find a way to give Katie her request for kindness. I invite you to consider whether and how you or all of us might be Katie’s kind stranger.

Life events can change us. Sometimes life’s beauty is peaceful, calm, and reassuring. Sometimes it is the fierce and terrifying beauty of a hurricane or a wild fire.
A change that breaks open our heart is both terrifying and reaffirming.
Once our heart is broken open, we cannot return to where we were before.

Rumi advised us with these words, “Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?”

How do we know?
How does anyone know?

Here is what I know. Life is beautiful. That beauty can be calming and it can be terrifying. I know this too, in all of life’s changing beauty, we are surrounded by a love that holds us in an everlasting embrace that will not let us go.

When disaster strikes and everything is broken, people may ask, “Where is God?” and someone will whisper, “Look for the helpers.” For they are the face of the divine at work in our lives just as surely as the one who suffers is the face of the divine trying to live in the presence of their suffering.

My Dear Spiritual Companions, in our lives and in our days to come, may we be faithful helpers who express the love of the divine when help is needed.
May helpers come to us in our times of need, when the beauty of life seems to be only the fierce face of beauty. May we live our lives to the fullest in every season and in every circumstance.

Blessed Be. I Love You. Amen.

So why isn't the equinox exactly equal?
It turns out you actually get a little more daylight than darkness on the equinox, depending on where you are on the planet. How does that happen?
As the US National Weather Service explains, the "nearly" equal hours of day and night are because of the complex way a sunrise is measured and the refraction of sunlight in our atmosphere.

This bending "causes the sun to appear above the horizon when the actual position of the sun is below the horizon." The day is a bit longer at higher latitudes than at the equator because it takes the sun longer to rise and set the closer you get to the poles. So on fall equinox, the length of day will vary a little according to where you are:
-- At the equator: About 12 hours and 6 and half minutes (Quito, Ecuador, or Kampala, Uganda)
-- At 30 degrees latitude: About 12 hours and 8 minutes (Austin, Texas, or Cairo, Egypt)
-- At 60 degrees latitude: About 12 hours and 16 minutes (Helsinki, Finland)
For the truly equal day/night split, you have to wait some days after the official equinox. That's called the equilux. In 2018, that will happen on September 28.