Another Look At Autumn

SAT., NOV. 4, 2000, 7:15 AM
FARM, STUDY

Autumn, here, is a beautiful season. Most of the golden leaves from the maples surrounding this Farmhouse have fallen, and, hence, the ground is golden. You see many branches, large and small, but you increasingly see the sky, which, today, is cloud-covered. It is cool, but not yet cold. You haven’t yet fired up your small stove. This is a good task for today: fuel and light each one to be sure they’ll not smoke as you need their heat.

It may be time to go to long pants and long-sleeved shirts… even a sweater or jacket. You should have mowed your lawn once more, but now you can do only portions that are not leaf-covered. It soon will be “cool enough” to get your chainsaws functioning and turn that “wood-lot” into usable firewood. In this sense, this is a fine season to anticipate and enjoy.

It also is the autumn of your life, this one as Bob Russell. It has been a wonderful life, from childhood, through adolescence, a part in your generation’s war, a university education, and your first teaching/coaching position. And, of course, you remember that ten days after you arrived in Hawaii for this first job you met Lenore, who was to be (after some appropriate conflicts) your life partner. As I do influence some lives, purposefully, I did “arrange” this, and have been pleased with how your two lives have also become one.

Your long, active career (much of it here, the best place for you) spanned 48 years of actual teaching… and I like the symbol that this, 48, was your number for 4 years at UCLA, in your football-playing years. You began teaching English and Social Studies to 7th graders (because you were one of the last hired for that year – 1948) and then, that same year, to Algebra. Since you weren’t prepared to teach any of these you had to show your adaptability…and you did.

And, at the end of your career, you taught all courses you had either originated or adapted, so that your final years in the classroom were truly enjoyable. Not everyone has such experiences in the “work” they do. (You remember that glimpse you had into your Dad’s working life, and you are thankful that you didn’t have to follow in those “footsteps.” And yet you also realize that the financial “security” that now seems to be yours comes from the money saved by your parents, from work that was not always joyous. Be thankful…).

In addition to your official career you, in this autumn season of your life, have given up the church responsibilities that were yours over many years. The main “continuing task” that you have is this active relationship with Me… having these Teachings with some regularity and writing and sending forth Our Ruminations each quarter. Oh, you should do better in writing letters to friends and family, and I’ll nag you about that frequently.

But it is the Autumn season. The grass doesn’t grow, new leaves don’t form, and the warmth of summer diminishes… and soon will be only a remembrance. In this season, for you, it is “coasting” time… a time not to accomplish so much as a time to contemplate life as it is and as it has been. (You wonder whether this study will ever have a neat appearance, rather than this “clutter”… and so do I.)

Soon winter will come to this region and place. The winter of your life will be decreased mobility (you had a taste of that yesterday), increased pain and dysfunction… an undependable memory and continued diminishing of your sight and hearing. Thus, you face an important life challenge: you’ve had a wonderfully functional life, and in it you’ve increased the power of your spirit… SO NOW… can this spirit carry you through this time of late autumn and winter, continuing strong and vital… OR… will it atrophy with the apparent “burdens” of life that now seem to increase?