recognizing the season

By Chelsea Spyres
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Fall has always been one of my favorite seasons. Through college I was in marching band, so fall meant a really unique type of community. In each place that I have lived I have watched the leaves on the trees change as the air that I breathe turns a little crisper. This fall was no different, and I especially held on to a few weeks when it seemed like in a matter of hours I could see transformation happening all around me.

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I think I like fall as much as I do because I like to see things change, to transform, to become something new. I especially like when this happens quickly and when I can see it. Those falls where the leaves are all of sudden brown or the springs when all of a sudden there are buds on all the trees are not my favorite, I want to be able to see, to witness the change.
 
This fall has been particularly challenging in many ways but one of those has been in discovering the season that we are in within the church I serve. I came back from London and I wanted it to be the first day of spring. I wanted to start planting, I wanted to bring new life. I wanted to have it all begin to grow, and then I realized we are in the midst of a Mid-Atlantic fall.
 
There is a lot that we are doing that is really beautiful, things that just need to change slightly to become even more full. And then there are things that we have been doing for so long and they are no longer life giving. We are in a season of naming that, so that we can then shed those things, to give way for new life.
 
At one point in London I journaled and underlined the phrase, “recognize the season, and take the next right step, you can’t plan it all out at once.” In London I dreamed that my next role was to plant something new, but when I returned it was clear that we couldn’t just keep planting new things (I was going to burn myself and the church out with too many things at once). First I needed to help us name where we have been, to mourn what is not life giving any more, and to then celebrate this new life God is calling us to.
 
While we may be in a season of late fall to early winter, spring is coming and it is going to be great!