The bare tree outside my office, which only days ago was laden with fiery red leaves, reminds me that autumn is rapidly moving us towards the snow and cold of winter, as nature falls asleep.
This fallow period of dormancy, rest, and apparent lifelessness we know well, both because we live in Wisconsin, where our trees are leafless six months out of the year and because we have tasted the cycles of the Paschal Mystery, the dying and rising of Christ.
The poignancy of these colder and darker November days speaks of the golden summer now past, the brevity of life as we pray for the dead and the cycle of the seasons of the heart.
