I love this time of year. We can wear flannel, soccer is in full-swing, and the temperature drops. And of course, there’s the leaves. The familiar greens transform to all sorts of stunning yellows, oranges, reds, and purples.
Why is this? I remember hearing about an ancient Native American legend, where the tribal spirits would secretly paint the leaves every fall. But they couldn’t paint the evergreens, the pine needles kept poking them. Even as a young church kid who believed in God, I scoffed at the story. “That’s stupid. I don’t see any paintbrushes.”
My response reflected something about our culture, namely that it’s disenchanted. Fairies, goblins, ghosts, angels, demons: done for, products of superstitious, primitive, unenlightened minds. We’re taught to be skeptical of the supernatural. “No spirits are painting leaves, this is simply a scientific process.” Materialism (that we are just matter in motion) proclaims that everything has a scientific explanation. Disease comes from bacteria, bad dreams come from our brains, leaves change color because they lose their chlorophyll. The natural world functions, well, naturally, without outside influences.
This means that meaning “is what you make it”, because there really isn’t any. You should search for your own significance, because there’s nothing transcendent or eternal about the world around us. Reflecting back on the fall season, there’s really nothing special about leaf pigments producing different colors. Any kind of appreciation of the colors is simply an evolutionary response hard-wired within us to notice changes in our environment. Plus color often equals food, necessary for survival. Scientific materialism, for all its advantages (medicine!), has drained all meaning from our lives.
This fall season, as I sip a cup of coffee at Rogue Rosters, I’m reminded of the flaws of BOTH philosophies (the Native American legend AND the modern American legend).
I reject that someone is actually painting the leaves, but I also reject that no one is.
I reject that there is no intention or artistry or design to the brilliant and beautiful colors.
Science can tell me why the leaves change color, but science can’t tell me why fall is my favorite season. Science can explain a sunset, but can’t tell me why I find it beautiful.
Science can’t help us with morality. It can give us an atomic bomb, but cannot tell us whether or not to use it. Science, by definition, is not equipped to handle transcendence. Science is a great gift, but a drab deity.
Modernity has helped us immensely in understanding HOW our world works. But it has left us thoroughly unable to understand WHY our world works. For example: suicide seems to go up in wealthier countries. Extra free time + more time searching for significance = amplified anxiety.
I firmly believe this fall that the Christian tradition has the resources for us in this time of searching. One songwriter sees reality in this way: "Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy." -Psalm 8:1,3-4
And another:
“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.” -Psalm 24:1
The greatness and the magnitude of the world around us points to a Creator, who lovingly owns us all. And he wants us to enjoy him in every season. We are not alone on a lonely planet. We do not need to shoulder our own search for significance. We can find it in the God who paints the leaves, inviting us to enjoy them, even when we have to rake them in the rain.
-Tyler
*Side note: I do wonder if the Native American legend is meant to be an absolute truth claim. In our modern arrogance, we project primitivity back on our ancestors. But maybe they’re not stupid. Maybe they’re not operating on the fact-falsehood paradigm. Maybe instead of believing the legend literally, they simply used stories to explain the significance of the season, to encapsulate meaning into reproducible traditions and tales. Stories and songs stick with us far longer than speeches. Maybe this will doom scientific materialism: the story sucks.
