Wormholes may or may not exist between the galaxies but one definitely exists on my drive to work. Every fall, the oranges, purples, and yellows of the Virginia maples and oaks form a Kubrickian star gate that transports me to November 7th, 1999 on the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains.
My cousin had tied the knot the day before at The University of the South, where he and his new bride met in Sewanee, Tennessee. I had driven there from Birmingham where I was still in college and was set to drive back on Sunday. Someone told me that I had to go see the Memorial Cross before I left. Dedicated in 1923 and perched on the overlook of the plateau, this 60-foot cross memorialized those from the school and county who died in World War I.
The particular moment that the autumnal wormhole conveys me to every time is the drive. I find myself driving my grandfather’s Cadillac, equipped with a sturdy suspension that absorbs pothole contact as if it were a gentle hug. As this elegant ride glides through the rises and falls of the road to the edge of campus, the tape of Handel’s Messiah in the deck plays “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd” and the trees, in peak fall colors, fill my view. The whole immersion is greater than the sum of its parts, the trifecta of the vestibular and aural and visual transcending description. Perhaps all I can say is that I am swept up into fall like a leaf carried further up and further in, remaining in midair against gravity’s wishes.
Fall has a suspense about it. We willfully suspend our perennially-confirmed knowledge that these colors are but a beautiful death. Soon the leaves will be grounded altogether, requiring sore backs or hired help to gather them into bags. But we don’t want to think about that now. We simply want to enjoy the autumn colors, just as I want to enjoy the company of my grandfather whose Cadillac I am driving, though I know that Alzheimer’s is diminishing his intellectual chlorophyll and will one day reduce him to bare twig and branch. The tragedy of fall’s beauty is inescapable, eliciting a “Not yet; let me enjoy this for a moment.”
The alto’s words of the shepherd gathering the lambs with His arm, carrying them in His bosom give way to the soprano’s invitation, elevated by a major fourth, as if from Old to New,
“Come unto Him, all ye that labor,
come unto Him that are heavy laden,
and He will give you rest.”
I am driving to the cross, itself a moment suspended in time, not by human iconography but by our Lord himself. There is an autumnal tint to the Lord’s Supper where Christ, on the verge of Gethsemane tears and the terror of Golgotha, pleads with his disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). He pauses the moment so that we never forget the death required for us to join his resurrection.
The leaves in those Appalachian Mountains eventually became compost for future growth, just as the leaves on my drive will. I preached my Pop’s funeral seven years later, but I will witness him in blinding glory when Jesus raises him anew. And as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Tomorrow I will drive through the portal again. I will see the colors, hear the baroque melodies, and feel the rise and fall of the road. And I will be present in this moment of fall’s beauty, as timeless as the Savior’s scars.
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