You used to know where you were with November. It was the month when autumn was well advanced, most of the leaves fallen or falling from the trees, colder weather coming as the nights drew in, and the earth getting ready for her long sleep through the winter months.
But with the thought of climate change in most people’s minds, and growing fears about the probable dangers it will face us with in the future, everything feels different. We have just had one of the warmest summers - certainly the warmest September - on record. October brought thunderstorms, torrential rains and flash flooding such as we are more used to in the height of summer. And there is little sign, as I write this, of the temperature falling. Even the energy companies (poor dears) are feeling the pinch, as people haven’t been turning their heating on, and so the companies have been unable to sell their over-priced gas.
The only thing that hasn’t changed, is the failing light. As the earth travels along her path round the sun, and the northern hemisphere tilts away, the days grow shorter and the light that reaches us seems fainter and more dilute. It becomes a struggle to get out of bed in the morning, and daily life feels harder.
In years gone by, before the TV set in the corner of the room beguiled us with its flickering light, people would gather round the fire at the end of the November day, and tell stories as they remembered times past. November is still a month of remembering, as we think of lost loved ones at our All Souls’ Memorial Services, and of the wartime dead on Remembrance Sunday. In the Church’s liturgical year, it is also a time of preparation as we turn from looking back in remembrance, to looking ahead towards Advent and Christmas: the promises of what God has done and will do to bring new life to the world through the coming of his Son.
There is a proper spiritual or soul-discipline for this season, too. Perhaps autumn, rather than spring, is the right time for clearing some of the clutter from our lives. Just as we clear away the dead leaves and rubbish from our gardens,so too there will be things in our lives that have been beautiful and fruitful in their time, but now need to be got rid of. One way to use those long November evenings, would be to plan and carry out some of that clearing of the ground of our lives.
Again, when the earth lies fallow, the life beneath the ground is not dead but only sleeping, waiting for the warmth and light of spring to bring it forth. Our lives could also gain from observing the natural rhythm of the seasons, and keeping an appropriate fallow time. What is there that we might want to stop doing, or lay down, or let go of, for the duration of the cold dark winter? Perhaps with a view to taking it up again when spring returns - or maybe finding that we don’t need to, and it can remain dormant for a while longer?
Wherever these thoughts may lead us, it is good to resist the temptation of the modern world to ignore the times and seasons, and harness the power of technology to turn night into day, and winter - maybe not into summer - but at least into something less cold and miserable. We lose so much, if we lose touch with nature and its ways. November and the disappearing light could remind us that we still need to live in harmony with the world in which we live.
Published in the Marston Times, November 2006