Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine; *
preserve what your right hand has planted.
– Psalm 80:14

I spent a few hours this week chatting with a handful of parishioners on the patio at Gardens for Charlestown. As the weather cools and our lives move indoors, I’ve cherished these last few opportunities to spend a pleasant morning outside—and not just because of COVID. I’ve always loved those late-spring, early-fall days, between the cold rain of April and the bitter breeze of late November, days when it’s comfortable to wear jeans and a fleece and sit outside for hours. (Unfortunately, I’ve lived my whole life in New England.)

There’s something sad about an early-October community garden. The summer’s bounty of vegetables has been harvested; the flowers’ beauty has faded away. A few green cherry tomatoes remain, unlikely ever to ripen now.

There’s something beautiful, too, about a garden’s fall. It gives us time to start afresh, time to pull out the plants that bore no fruit, to let the earth lie fallow for a season, to make plans for a garden made anew. Do we stick with our trusty perennials, the things we know work for us time and again? Do we give up on this year’s experiment, tossing it on the compost heap of failed experiments? Do we learn from our mistakes and try again?

Maybe you can see where I’m going with this. The Church is in a strange, autumnal time. Old habits that we loved have faded away. There’s fruit from March still left green on the vine. It’s okay to mourn the loss of brighter days, the loss of the warmth we once felt from one another’s sun. And it’s okay to dream. To plan. To imagine what comes next for our little garden plot. To gather up the plants that never thrived and leave them behind; to look ahead with joy to our perennials’ return.

Peace,
Greg