"Happiness isn't always the best way to be happy," and other truths I learn from wild things in fall

October is so soft and silent. Nothing blossoms, nothing chirps into life, no one erupts into raucousness during a festive day at the beach. October is a time to notice the world's gentle goodness; the trees in my neighboring park have turned scarlet and others look like giant golden fireworks in mid-blast. It has nothing of the fiery, loud, silly, sexy summer; it has everything of depth, quiet, sweetness, goodness.

This is my kind of season: a dorky introvert's season.

I'm aware that springtime is all about the Hope. I mean. There are bunnies hopping around. The only thing that screams Hope louder than bunnies is the Obama family. There are tulips breaking through dusty earth, there is Jesus and his rising from the dead. There are cherry blossoms pushing their way through bark and the celebration of first sunshine. This pretty, youthful magic all points to hope, renewal.

But to tell you the truth I think I feel hope most powerfully during fall, when vivacious green leaves begin to sulk and the water turns from cheerful cerulean to dark grey and we give up tender young vegetables in favor of these large gourds which feel wooden they are so tough, sporting deep wrinkles and heavy rough stems.

Hope and renewal for me does not look like flowers and bunnies; it looks more like fallen leaves and angry skies.

Okay please don't call the Suicide Hotline.

I really love bunnies.

But I feel the desire for hope most powerfully when scenery changes and things begin to fall. And I love that there is an entire season devoted to intense change and falling. I must and do believe that God intends fall to be hopeful through its surrender of beauty. I think that many people would see Christianity as a springtime sort of religion--the kind that relies on images of bunnies and flowers and constant cheering-up. But I see Christianity as a fall sort of religion--the kind that constantly and desperately must pick up the fallen pieces and start over again.

I mean think about it. Let's just think, okay. Let's talk about Tamar. She is one of my favorite Bible people. She is not someone I learned about in Sunday School. No Siree Bob.

The following events happened to Tamar:
1. Her husband died
2. She was raped
3. She was offered a goat in exchange for her lady services. A goat!
4. Townsfolk thought she was cursed
5. People threatened to burn her to death

Then she had twins. And the baby daddy was Tamar's father-in-law.

The end of the story is that one of these twins was Jesus' ancestor.

I mean talk about messed up.

Why many Christians are so obsessed with the "sanctity of marriage" and sexual purity is completely beyond me.

I was reading recently on the Episcopal Church's stance on divorce. The Church genuinely accepts people into church following a divorce--not because they don't value marriage but because they acknowledge and understand that marriage is a covenant between humans, and humans sometimes (often) fail despite their most valiant attempts. Faith in God will not necessarily save a breaking marriage. Faith in God will redeem something that broke. Furthermore, it will not create a brand-new vase out of one that smashed into a billion pieces...but perhaps it will make a lovely mosaic out of said billion pieces.

The Bible is full of covenants and promises, but more often full of redemption and renewal. It begins with a broken covenant--between God, Adam, and Eve--and then really just keeps going downhill from there. God has a long history of redeeming broken covenants and completely messed-up situations. Jesus did not come into the world through a spotless line of happy marriages and sinless WASPs. His family history includes prostitutes, rape victims, love-sick kings, brilliant poets, incestuous creeps, a young Jewish newlywed.

Fall is such a good season to have around, to remind us that failing is inevitable and a part of the process, and that even death with all its fear and misery and finality of beach days can look beautiful and colorful and suitable for jumping into large piles of leaf-pillows. And Advent is upon us...not in shining, spotless summer but in gloom-filled, bleak winter when we shiver and sleep and dream and hope.

Oh how I love fall.

I have been strangely homesick lately, though Chicago feels more home to me than it ever has. When did this happen? It feels like it took one evening; it feels like it took five years. So I don't know if I'm homesick for Seattle or Baltimore or Chile or just the ocean or mountains.

But, lucky for me, in a certain light, Chicago looks just like Santiago.

The scenery in "Where the Wild Things Are" looked so much like the Lakes Region in Central Chile where I spent some glorious days of mine walking sneakily through sheep-dwellings and discovering fields of lavender in the backyard of a blacksmith's lodge, dodging Argentinians on top of dunes and looking toward the end of the blue horizon thinking "That's the ocean, that's the ocean" but not fully believing it because it's just such a very large and difficult idea to comprehend.

At certain points during the film those images of dunes and fields filled me with such overwhelming nostalgia that my heart hurt, and so did my legs, and my arms, and other vessels for major arteries.

I really liked that movie.

Some of it, the elegant fort made of sticks for example, reminded me of Andy Goldsworthy, who is a wonderful sculptor. He makes videos of his installations and they make me think of God.

They also make me think of hobbits.

Which I think are related to God, through their first cousin JRR Tolkein.

Mrs. P asked what I am doing lately, since I got back from Chile. I just sighed, as I am really melodramatic, and said, "Um," only I heaved a great heavy sigh as I said it. Mrs. P nodded assertively and proclaimed: "You're paying your rent, you're going to church, and you're thinking about your future."

I am paying my rent, I am going to church, and I'm thinking about my future. If this is good enough for Mrs. P, then by all means it is good enough for me.

Though I'd prefer that paying my rent did not involve two jobs that often make me want to strangle people. However, lately I am trying to deal with my anger in productive, loving ways. Like imagining my customers with muppet noses.

I would prefer my job be picking out pumpkins all day with the sweetheart of mine.

This fall, despite its impulses to yell at customers and just give up on admissions essays altogether, has been particularly restorative, renewing, redeeming. I feel change in my bones; I feel strengthening of my heart and the decaying parts of my mind that were beginning to wilt. Some things are falling to make room for new life, and the falling is some of the most lovely and poetic I've ever seen.

Fall is the brave and humble season, breaking the earth and swooping up its harvest to make way for a lengthy sleep and joyous awakening. Fall makes the broken look beautiful, makes the surrender look triumphant in royal shades of burgundy.

Oh yes yes: Fall is joyful surrender, beautiful brokenness, and lots and lots of pumpkin baked goods, thanks be to God. Let the wild rumpus start!