Finding Beauty in the Fall

Fall is my favorite time of year.  I love everything about it:  the crisp morning air; the fresh start of the school year; the promise of the holidays just around the corner; and, yes, even Starbucks’ over-priced Pumpkin Spice Lattes (though I’d like to try this healthier, do-it-yourself version).  My dad once commented that October would be the perfect time for a wedding since the outdoor colors are dramatic, the weather isn’t too hot (the air conditioning died at my parents’ June wedding – in California’s Central Valley – so temperature is something he and Mom always think about now), and no major holidays are there to impede date setting.

While Jon and I didn’t get married in Autumn, I still think of it as the perfect season with its cool temperature and beautiful colors.

Part of me wonders, though, if the beauty that I see in Fall is actually a result of The Fall.

After all, isn’t the brilliant display of gold, amber, and crimson really the death of the leaf?  And if death did not enter the world until Adam sinned, it begs the question of whether or not we would have had the beautiful Autumnal colors that many of us eagerly wait for every year if The Fall had not occurred.

There is no human way to discern this, but it is something that I often think about.  It’s very possible that leaves would have changed color for a season and simply returned to their green peak of vibrancy without falling from the tree.  Yet, scholars theorize that seasons likely did not change until after the Flood, meaning that there would not have been cooler seasons to induce the amazing color-changing phenomenon that preempts Winter.

I think it’s quite possible that Fall is one of many ways in which the Creator has made something lovely from what was otherwise broken and ruined.  Perhaps He brought beauty from ashes once again by providing yet another instance of His creative genius despite the ruin that sin brought upon the world.  We still have death, and leaves still die and fall from their branches, but God allowed them to do so in a breathtaking way that only He could have thought up.

However Fall came to be – whether originally designed from the beginning of creation or added later after the tarnish of sin had left its mark – it will always be my favorite season.

Your turn:  Which season is your favorite and why?  Have you ever thought about what it might have been like before the Fall of Man?  Let me know in the comments.