Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
from “Frost at
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Time it just right and you can sit by the water’s edge where the golds of autumn not only wrap above you, but blanket the earth like snow obscuring path and stream where all vision belongs to one scene. There is no boundary, no regulation, no protocol as to how you should interpret the surroundings. For a few brief days the world can be anything. And that is true freedom, isn’t it? To receive no dictation.
But it does not last. We are not allowed the reverie. We are taught repeatedly the lessons our seasons reveal.
One of Ben Witherington’s favorite phrases in his books and lectures is that God reveals enough to give us hope, but not so much that we don’t have to live by faith.
So I await the time when experience will retain eternally all the vividness of fall, purity of winter, creativity of spring and abundance of summer.
