Fall is quickly approaching. It was only 51 degrees this morning when I left for work. I even had to turn the car heater on for a little while to warm up my feet during my short commute.

I love autumn. Its only downfall is that it never seems to last long enough. Just as soon as the leaves reach their peak, they are replaced by the cold and barren branches of the trees they’ve left behind. There is something necessary, however, in having fall as a transition from summer to winter, our two longest seasons in Louisville. Fall prepares us for the long dark of winter, just as spring reawakens us to experience the deep warmth of summer.

Having grown up in Los Angeles, I didn’t experience seasons like I now know them in Louisville. The weather is stereotypically near perfect in Los Angeles, with “winter” consisting of days mostly in the 50s and 60s. During my childhood, therefore, the seasons of the church provided a rhythm to life that weather patterns could not provide. I left the liturgical Lutheran church I was raised in and began attending a non-denominational church at the age of 15. We didn’t follow the church calendar, except to celebrate Easter and Christmas, two holidays that seemed to come out of nowhere without the preparatory time of Advent and Lent. Those years of attending a non-denominational church in Los Angeles left me feeling aimless in a lot of ways. I realize now that it was largely because there were no yearly seasons in my life. Time became linear, and I needed the repetition of cyclical time, of seasonal life, to give me structure and guidance.

I don’t enjoy winters here in Louisville, and summers can be a little too humid for my Southern California sensibilities, but I endure them knowing that another season is always on its way. This gives me hope. Hope for my life, for the life of the church, and for the life of the world.