The solstice has passed, and it is officially Autumn, not my favorite season.
How do I welcome a change of seasons I don’t like and what does that have to do with worship?
Personally, I really like heat and light, the more the better. Warm sun on my skin, light clothing, bright colors, watersports, travel. I like eating al fresco, no school, growing veggies and flowers, and spending hours outdoors. I even like the 3 H’s: Hazy, Hot, and Humid. Summer is my jam and I like the hope of its seasonal neighbor, spring. In my perfect world, summer lasts seven months, spring and fall each get two, and winter is one month at Christmas and it snows a lot.
Clearly, my perfect world does not exist.
I realize some of you cannot identify at all with what I’ve written thus far. Perhaps you’re good with all the seasons, you love pumpkin spice, or it’s snow that does it for you. Maybe you do not experience SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and have no need for a “sun” light in your office.
If we get metaphorical, though, I imagine all our lives have seasons we like more than others. How do we welcome seasons of grief, change, or other seasons that are not our favorite?
I suggest we welcome them the same way we welcome fall.
In my book, Meaning in the Moment: How Rituals Help Us Move Through Joy, Pain, and Everything in Between, I write about embodiment through ritual, through worship, and how it helps us act as our unified self: body, soul, and spirit. I experience the change of seasons through my body, my senses—I see the leaves change color, sense the shortened days, smell the changed air, tense my muscles against the bitter wind, and yes, I drink pumpkin spice.
Regardless of the joys of pumpkin spice, though, fall and its close neighbor, winter, are not welcome in my world. I don’t want to be cold and often try to live in denial or fight the change of seasons to fall for a time. I admit at times I display the same attitude toward other unlikeable metaphorical seasons.
As much as I wish I could, though, I cannot stop fall from arriving, spending time, bringing me to winter, and only afterward to spring. Wearing shorts and a tank top every day will not keep summer here, nor will it hasten its return. I cannot stop the passage of time and the changes and loss it causes to those I love and the world I live in.
So, I welcome the change of seasons. It’s the only way to thrive in each one. I have no problem welcoming spring and summer—I might do a personal worship ritual to welcome it, but the stamp of welcome is through my entire being.
But in the fall, I welcome the change of seasons I dislike but cannot control. I open my hands and in so doing, I open all of myself to everything I dislike (and those little things I like). I welcome it.
Welcoming prayer is a historical Christian practice that helps us be present to God in the present moment, calms our anxious thoughts, and helps us receive what God would have for us right now.
I listened to this podcast from Bridgetown Church in June 2020, and it helped me welcome the unlikeable season of a global pandemic. The podcast explains welcoming prayer as a personal practice. Here is a United Methodist reflection on the practice and here is an Episcopalian one. Would you try it with me as you think about welcoming the current season of your life?
- Place both feet on the floor to ground yourself.
- Take three deep breaths and become present to the moment and to your body. Welcome the Holy Spirit to inhabit these moments.
- With the Holy Spirit, pay attention to your body and see if there are any places of tension or pain; simply notice them without judgment.
- Place your hands, palm downward, in front of you, in a posture of letting go. Pray, “I let go of my desire for security, affection, perfection, and control.” Take a few moments to allow the words to become true for you.
- Now turn your hands palms upward and pray, “I receive this moment (this season) as it is. Amen.”
During the pandemic, I prayed this three times every day. It helped me welcome the unwelcome season we all experienced. It balanced me and strengthened me. As I walk through a season of transition and enter the fall, I pray it so that my body will welcome all these seasons hold.
Welcoming Prayer might take a moment or much longer. It can be individual or corporate prayer. In the fall of 2020, I regularly used it as a call to worship as I led seminary chapels. It brought us together to the present and led us to praise and adoration of the King of Kings.
For me, welcoming the fall is not a one-time deal. I must keep welcoming it because I want to resist. Still, in addition to prayer, I like to throw a pumpkin-spice-welcome-the-fall party close to the solstice. It helps me remember that while I love the summer, the fall is okay, too.