I live in Eastern Tennessee, and though my back yard is the Appalachian Mountains, we aren’t shaded from the relentless summer heat. It’s humid, hazy, and makes a tired momma rather hysterical. But just yesterday, I felt a slight chill in the air… if “a slight chill” counts as 69-degree weather.
I didn’t pour sweat just walking to my car, and I didn’t feel as though my family was buckling into a mobile oven. This cooler weather was a natural reprieve, a breath of light, fresh, holiday air.
I must admit this shift from summer to fall, though subtle in late August, feels a bit whimsical as we pull out the flannel shirts, light our apple spice candles, and start planning football potluck parties and pumpkin patch visits. It’s a cozy craving for a new season, yet it’s the nostalgia, the old memories, of the season we desperately welcome.
We humans are funny, aren’t we? We always want what’s next, but find no comfort in the new thing if we can’t bring bits and pieces of the old along with us.
Oddly enough, this seemingly contradictory balancing act on the tightrope of time is our grappling after hope. It’s a sign that hard things won’t always last, that newness is ahead, and that we can step confidently into tomorrow, trusting in the comfort of a gracious God who has proven Himself through the past, who not only knows but created this endearing pumpkin spice latte season.
There’s a unique rhythm to the change in leaves, to our need for cozy comforts. This raises an undeniably important question: How can we ensure the Church carries out its sacred rituals with the same warmth and longing?
Letting Memory and Meaning Shape How We Gather This Season
I’m certain that our anxious anticipation for fall and its coziness centers on two things: memories and consumerism.
When I was in college, TikTok didn’t exist (and I thank the Lord for that). However, we did have Vine, a video app that was likely TikTok’s launching pad. Vine featured very short clips, like reels, without so much pressure, as social media influencing wasn’t yet a trendy career. Vine was essentially memes with moving parts, and they were all funny. Very funny.
My sister and I would always cackle at this one Vine video of a llama jumping across a field with a voiceover singing, “Pumpkin spice latte, every day, with the bae, then Chick-fil-A!” How much more stereotypical can a teenage girl’s autumn be?
Though social media tech left Vine in the digital rubble nearly ten years ago, my sister and I still sing this little clip to each other when fall rolls around and it’s time to order our “fall aesthetic drinks.”
Memories. They not only stay in our minds but pull at our hearts and fine-tune our ability to feel yesterday’s goodness today.
Then, there’s consumerism. Oh, the bombarding, often overreaching world of buying and selling. This time of year, I can’t help but think of Hobby Lobby and the magical aroma that fills each aisle decorated with pumpkins, scarecrows, and hay bales. My husband says that while you’re in Hobby Lobby, you’re breathing in “Holy Spirit air,” and though that sentiment makes me chuckle, I think it’s more of the company’s perfected ability to create an experience for the shopper.
Visiting Hobby Lobby this time of year is like a virtual trip to the pumpkin patch, except you can take home far more than just one pumpkin. It’s a company that has capitalized on what we crave this time of year: the warmth of presence, of enjoying the sights and sounds and smells right where we are, and sharing those realities with loved ones.
I pray the Church reflects on the undeniable power of memories and consumerism and allows them their respectful places in our efforts to create festive rhythms centered on cherished time with others.
Turning Fall Traditions into Welcoming Invitations
Memories and consumerism’s bait have one pivotal thing in common: resting in togetherness. Memories pull us back to not only things but the people tied to those things. It’s why we can’t hear a certain song or smell a certain cologne without thinking of an old friend or a teenage boy who broke our hearts.
And while memories tie us to an unchangeable form of a person, which can sometimes be sad, I’d like to think our memories centered on fall’s togetherness are often sweet and treasured.
I recall those first few football games my husband, then boyfriend, spent with my family and how he taught my mom to make a meatball game-day snack that she still enjoys preparing.
I think of my college girlfriends and me taking photos around a campfire when we accidentally matched our flannel outfits.
I think of sweet things, but those sweet things mean nothing without the sweet people.
Even consumerism sells the beautiful ticket to community, as it offers special table linens and dinnerware and coffee mugs begging you to host people at your home.
What if you took the bait this year and let yourself revisit sweet memories, even if they leave an ache? What if you splurged and bought the beautiful fall wreath to welcome people into your festive home? What if you rest in God’s gift of community and recognize how important it is that we share this cooler season with those who love, support, and encourage us in the Lord?
I pray vulnerability and hospitality become your rituals as you consider finding a new tradition to cultivate this fall that will invite others into your home and life. Honor the Christian practice of gathering with like-minded believers and recognize the yearning it fills and the comfort it brings to your soul.
“...not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:25
Let Your Joy Be Rooted in God’s Unchanging Faithfulness
What is any ritualistic practice within Christianity, whether in worship, in prayer, or in gathering, if not tethered to our eternal hope in God?
In fact, eternal hope is our access to confidence in the next season that lies ahead, even if it guarantees longer, darker nights and a chillier fog in the air. After all, hope isn’t bright if it isn’t held up against thick darkness. Eternal hope isn’t lasting if it can’t weather through unpredictable and uncontrollable seasons.
So, dear Christian, as you search for warmth and rhythm this fall in a cozy blanket, a crackling fire, or a relaxing candle fragrance, I have three wishes for you:
1. Honor memories for the people you knew in that frozen timeframe of fall nostalgia. Even if ties are severed or relationships are in ruins, let those sweet times surrounded by bonfires and pumpkin patches remain beautiful. After all, that’s grace, isn’t it? Extending love and light when darkness thinks it has won.
2. Find joy in the holiday aisle at your favorite home decor store, letting consumerism not consume you but create a desire in you to establish a home filled with hospitality and peace.
3. Don’t neglect to honor the warmth you can carry every day through the beauty of communing with others and rejoicing in God’s eternal hope that will never dim despite change.
“Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.” Joel 2:23
Rest in Joel’s wisdom, my friend, and as we say in the deep, deep South, “Happy Fall, y’all!”
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Wipada Wipawin
