So what’s my favourite season? Autumn!
I like the fact that the seasons change more than anything. They even change in my Forza Horizon 4 game!
All seasons have appealing and unappealing features.
For whatever reason, I like autumn best. Maybe part of it is making a fresh start after the summer break and looking forward to Christmas.
And in early autumn in Ireland, we can get wonderful sunshine. July and August can be quite dull and humid. Perhaps we appreciate the sun more in September, when we’re not expecting it.
The part of the year that I dislike most is January and February. Then Spring appears and Easter can often be quite sunny too.
So many songs are about the autumn:
- “Autumn in New York” – Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
- “Autumn Serenade” – John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman
- “Forever Autumn” – Justin Hayward
- “Harvest Moon” – Neil Young
- “Autumn Leaves” – Nat King Cole
Maybe the same can be said for all seasons, but somehow autumn strikes a deep chord in me. A happy kind of sadness.
My favourite is Forever Autumn by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues.
Moving on to Christian themes, I think of harvest thanksgiving songs. All this meant much more to rural communities in years gone by. I’m not sure how many churches celebrate harvest nowadays. We used to do it in Cork Baptist Church and in Limerick Baptist Church. And we did it in Covent Garden Christian Centre, London, way back in 1982 (where I spent a year as a voluntary evangelist with London City Mission). It was then that I had to learn to play the hymns on the piano. I remember going to a harvest thanksgiving service in St. James, Bermondsey too that autumn. We never bothered doing it in Tipperary Christian Fellowship, which is strange because Tipperary was a more rural town. But we were a small fellowship back then, so everything was kept simple. Here are a few of my favourites.
Psalm 65:9
You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it
Psalm 36:5-6
5 Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.
6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep.
Isaiah 55:10
10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
Psalm 67:5-7
5 May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you.
6 The land yields its harvest;
God, our God, blesses us.
7 May God bless us still, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.
Psalm 8:3-4
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
All these hymns celebrate creation; for it’s beauty and how God provides for our needs. I sometimes think of the pagans at Lystra, who mistook Paul and Barnabas for gods and wanted to offer them sacrifices. Instead of accepting the honour, which many other religious leaders might do, Paul made it clear who the true God is and that He only should be worshipped. They key point is that even pagans were thankful to God, however confused they were.
Acts 14:14-18
4 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
Hibernia Gospel 