Living for many years in Japan, a country where all four seasons make you experience the beauty in God’s creation, it is not very easy to choose one particular season and call it ‘beautiful’. But recently I feel that I have become a fall-lover! I think it’s because of the specialty that I see in this season, namely ‘color changing’. It is amazing to watch how trees change colors.
I think fall is a season that explains to us what a real change or transformation is. One day the trees are green and in full bloom, and the next day they turn yellow or orange or red. Autumn leaves are a sign that “God is always taking the old and making it new to create a more beautiful world”.
This is how a little boy described autumn leaves! Isn’t that something beautiful?
It is important for us to accept and appreciate the change that takes place in nature, because it reminds us about the change that we may need in our lives. There are occasions where God intervenes with the intention of making us new and beautiful. I think the newness can be experienced only when we feel the need for a change and ready to give up our old self.
Soon we will begin a new liturgical season, during which God would invite us for a complete change through people like John the Baptist. May the season of Advent help us reflect on change and transformation that we may need as we walk the journey of life. Let us believe that God can take something old in us and make it more beautiful. I wish and pray that each one of us may have a meaningful season of Advent.
-Brad Rozairo OMI
