Suddenly It’s Autumn – Sunday, September 19, 1954
I don’t know how it is where you live, but where we live there has been a different feel in the air these past few days. By sure and certain signs, we are well aware that suddenly it’s Autumn—as trees begin to shed their summer dresses, leaf by leaf, first having costumed themselves in high color to celebrate the Autumn evening.
And one of these mornings the moisture on the grass will be white and crisp. Then the fields will take on quieter color, before Winter steps in and covers the sleeping silence with white sheets. Aside from the beauty, the naturalness, the wonder of this annual occurrence, what always strikes us is that it comes so suddenly. We remember only yesterday hearing the children talk of being soon out of school—but the Summer has suddenly slipped by, and now they are back again at their books.
We remember only yesterday watching the last snow melting, and farmers plowing Spring fields. Only yesterday, we remember looking anxiously for the first sign of leaves to show, and for the beauty of the Spring blossoms. Only yesterday (or so it seems) we remember the rush of Christmas shopping, and the ever-fresh wonder of the Christmas morning; the New year; February and Valentines; April and Easter; May and Memorial Day; June and commencement; and July and August; then Summer is gone—and suddenly it’s Autumn.
Wonderful as it all is, yet too many Summers have slipped suddenly from us without our having done a thousand things we had intended to do—things we had solemnly said “this year” we would do, with family and friends—when school was out, when Summer came. But Summer came and slipped away—and suddenly it’s Autumn. And too much of life itself has slipped away, as Spring has successively succumbed to Summer, and as successive Summers suddenly passed. And when it is Autumn, it is almost Winter; and when it is Winter, we had better have the harvest behind us.
Scrambling for lost time is an unhappy occupation. We can buy the harvest of the farmer’s field. We can buy apples by the bushel. We can buy all the material things that another man has made. But in life we cannot buy a year or a month or a minute. And with the seasons and the years slipping from us so suddenly, surely, we should sharpen our sense of values; surely, we should look at everyone and everything around us and ask ourselves what really matters most.
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September 19, 1954
Broadcast Number 1,309