Reflections for October
4th October 2026
There is something quietly beautiful about this time of year. Summer has not entirely disappeared, yet already there are signs that another season is approaching. The evenings begin to draw in. The light softens. Leaves that only weeks ago were green begin to turn, and before long they will loosen their hold and fall.
Perhaps autumn has something to teach us about letting go.
We spend much of our lives holding on: to plans, expectations, disappointments, habits, possessions, even versions of ourselves that no longer belong to the person God is calling us to become. Yet creation reminds us that letting go is not necessarily failure. Sometimes it is the beginning of renewal.
Jesus speaks of something similar:
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
John 12:24
There are things that must be released before something new can grow.
Thomas Hardy understood the melancholy beauty of the changing seasons. In his poem The Darkling Thrush, written in the depths of winter, he describes the landscape as seemingly exhausted and lifeless. Yet suddenly an old thrush begins to sing:
“Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.”
That is a profoundly Christian image. Even when the landscape appears bare, hope may already be singing somewhere beyond our sight.
The shortening days also remind us that life cannot always be lived in full sunlight. There is a rhythm of light and darkness, activity and stillness, work and rest. We are often encouraged to measure our worth by how much we accomplish. Scripture offers another rhythm. There is “a time to keep, and a time to throw away” (Ecclesiastes 3:6).
Perhaps this season invites us to ask what we are carrying unnecessarily. An old resentment? An unrealistic expectation? Anxiety about something we cannot control? The need always to be busy?
Watch a leaf falling from a tree. It does not struggle to remain where it has always been. Its letting go belongs to the deeper rhythm of life. And beneath the apparently dying landscape, something continues. Roots remain alive. Seeds wait silently. Spring is already hidden within autumn.
Christian faith does not promise that every season will be bright. It promises something greater: God remains present through every season. So perhaps the invitation of autumn is not simply to admire its beauty, but to imitate its wisdom.
Hold gratefully what God has given you.
Release what has served its season.
Make room for silence and rest. Trust what you cannot yet see.
For sometimes the deepest act of faith is simply to open our hands and say:
Lord, I release what has been. I receive what is. And I trust you with whatever comes next.
Amen
11th October 2026
There is something about Harvest that awakens memories. As a child, I used to enjoy watching “Out of Town” with Jack Hargreaves. Even now, remembering its familiar theme tune takes me back. Hargreaves had a wonderful way of introducing viewers to the countryside: its people, crafts, changing seasons and rhythms of rural life. There was no hurry about it. You were simply invited to look, listen and notice.
Perhaps that is one of the gifts of Harvest. It invites us to notice again.
Jesus once said:
“The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.”
Mark 4:28
Jesus was speaking about the kingdom of God. A farmer scatters seed and then, almost mysteriously, growth takes place. The farmer has work to do, certainly, but cannot command the seed to grow. Much happens beyond human control, hidden beneath the soil. That is true of Harvest and perhaps of life itself.
We can prepare the ground, sow the seed and tend what has been entrusted to us, but ultimately, we remain dependent upon things we cannot manufacture: soil, rain, sunlight, seasons and the mysterious gift of life itself.
Harvest therefore teaches us gratitude.
The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins begins his poem God's Grandeur with the wonderful words:
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”
Perhaps Harvest helps us rediscover that grandeur in very ordinary things: an apple hanging from a branch, freshly dug potatoes, fields of grain, blackberries in a hedgerow, or bread placed upon a table.
Yet Harvest also carries a challenge. Gratitude cannot end with saying thank you. If the earth and its abundance are gifts from God, then they are not ours simply to possess. Harvest asks how we share those gifts, how we care for creation, and whether we notice those whose tables remain painfully empty.
Perhaps that childhood memory of |”Out of Town” matters because it reminds me of something easily lost in the busyness of adulthood: the ability simply to wonder.
Harvest calls us back to that place.
To look again.
To receive again.
To give thanks again.
For behind the seed and soil, behind the rain and sunshine, behind the hands that sow and gather, stands the generosity of God. Harvest ultimately reminds us that life is gift. And once we recognise life as gift, gratitude must become more than something we say, t becomes a way of living.
Amen
18th October 2026
Looking back over the past year, it is tempting to remember the good moments and quietly push the difficult ones to one side. Yet often it is the moments of friction, the disappointments, frustrations, unanswered questions and unexpected obstacles, that have taught us most about ourselves, about others, and sometimes about God.
St Paul writes:
“Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”
Romans 5:3–4
Paul is not suggesting that suffering itself is good. Nor does Christian faith require us to pretend that painful experiences do not hurt. Rather, he recognises that God can work within the difficulties we encounter. What initially feels like an obstacle may eventually become a place of growth.
There is a Japanese art called kintsugi in which broken pottery is repaired with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. The cracks are not hidden; they become part of the beauty of the restored object. There is something profoundly Christian in that image. God does not necessarily erase the marks left by what we have endured. Sometimes grace shines through them.
C. S. Lewis wrote:
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”
We may only recognise this afterwards. Looking back, perhaps there were situations this year that demanded patience we did not know we possessed. Perhaps disappointment forced us to reconsider what really mattered. Perhaps conflict revealed something within ourselves that needed changing. Perhaps a closed door redirected us towards something we would otherwise never have discovered.
The important question is not simply, What happened to me this year? but, What has God been teaching me through it?
Scripture repeatedly tells the stories of people whose lives did not unfold according to plan. Joseph knew betrayal and imprisonment. Moses experienced wilderness. Peter knew failure. Paul carried his mysterious “thorn in the flesh.” Yet none of these experiences had the final word.
Neither should our difficulties.
As we look back, therefore, we need not celebrate everything that happened, nor pretend every wound has healed. But we can honour the journey by recognising what it has taught us.
The Christian hope is not that we will travel through life untouched by hardship. It is that no experience need be wasted when it is placed into the hands of God. The road may have been harder than we expected. We may carry scars from travelling it. Yet by God's grace we are still here, still growing, still becoming.
And perhaps, some of those scars are beginning, almost imperceptibly, to shine with gold.
Amen
25th October 2026
At the end of October and beginning of November, our attention is drawn towards darkness. Halloween fills shops and houses with images of ghosts, shadows and things that frighten us. Then, almost immediately, the Church keeps All Souls' Day, when we remember those whom we have loved and lost.
Perhaps beneath both lies something deeply human: our awareness that life is fragile and that there are things we cannot control. Christian faith does not pretend that darkness is unreal. We see it in war and violence, injustice and hatred. We encounter it personally in illness, loneliness, bereavement and grief. There are times when darkness seems painfully close.
Yet the Christian story makes an extraordinary claim:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
John 1:5
John is speaking about Jesus Christ. Notice that he does not say there is “no darkness.” Rather, he declares that “darkness does not have the final word.”
That distinction matters.
At All Souls, we remember people whose absence may still leave an empty chair, a silence in the house, or an ache within us. Christian hope does not ask us to deny that grief. Jesus himself wept at the grave of Lazarus. But neither does death have the final word.
The poet George Herbert wrote:
“Death used to be an executioner, but the gospel makes him just a gardener.”
It is a remarkable Christian image. What appears to us as an ending is held within the greater promise of resurrection. Perhaps that is why the simple act of lighting a candle can speak so powerfully. One small flame does not pretend that the surrounding darkness has disappeared. Yet however dark the room becomes; darkness cannot extinguish the meaning of that flame.
Christ calls us to carry that light into the world.
Every act of compassion pushes against darkness. Every word of forgiveness challenges hatred. Every time we stand beside someone who is grieving, feed someone who is hungry, welcome someone who is lonely or refuse to answer anger with anger, something of Christ's light becomes visible.
Halloween may play with darkness. All Souls asks us to confront something deeper: mortality itself. But Christianity goes further still.
It points towards Easter.
We are people of resurrection. We do not deny the darkness, but neither do we surrender to it. We light our candles, remember those whom we love, and place them again into the everlasting arms of God.
For Christ has entered the deepest darkness, even death itself, and risen from it.
And therefore, however dark the night may become, the light still shines, and the darkness will never overcome it.
Praise be to God Amen