"I wish autumn wouldn't come. It always makes me feel sad and nostalgic." I was sorry to hear this comment by a friend, and a little surprised, because I always anticipate autumn with joy. I love its mellow colors, fruition for labor, and peace.

If we are inclined to associate a vague or acute unhappiness with this season, Christian Science can release us from this unease by showing us how to spiritualize our concept of what is going on. Mrs. Eddy writes, "To the material sense, everything is matter; but spiritualize human thought, and our convictions change: for spiritual sense takes in new views, in which nature becomes Spirit; and Spirit is God, and God is good." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 217–218;}

Because God is the substance of true nature, the harmonies of what we call the natural world must be the expression of spiritual beauty, order, and design. Seen from this point of view, the brilliant crimsons and vermilions of autumn, the soft yellows and golds, indicate the spiritual hues of Soul, of divine Love, perpetually expressing and interpreting its own nature in fresh and infinite ways.

But when our concepts are based on the material senses, we have a clouded, distorted view of God's perfect nature. These senses aver inevitable decay and dissolution. They put a time limit on loveliness. Look, they say, autumn's scene is alive with color, warm and full of ripeness, but it's all about to crumble, turn gray, be bare. A cold, rough time is ahead!

Because in our true being we are the reflections of God, Spirit—His children—spiritual senses are the only senses we really have. Through spiritual study and understanding we progress in seeing that all genuine impressions come from God; we discern the true nature of things, emanating from Soul.

Actually, every blade of grass is born of the power of divine Principle, Love. True natural law is entirely beneficent and upholds the intactness and continuity of each thought in the divine consciousness. No mistaken belief in a law of decay ever touches or affects the creations of God. Mrs. Eddy writes, "In one sense God is identical with nature, but this nature is spiritual and is not expressed in matter." ^{Science and Health, p. 119;}

The evidence of an evil occurrence in nature doesn't verify evil as natural. Rather, it is the misinterpretation of material belief, bearing witness to the unnatural, to suppositional discord. When a perilous storm threatened the lives of Christ Jesus and his disciples, his understanding of the undeviating spiritual law of good enabled him to prove that the appearance of furious, destructive energy was without solidity or validity. The high winds and dangerous waves yielded to the motion and rhythm of God "and there was a great calm." ^{Matt. 8:26;} The serenity of Soul was always there.

If we watch raindrops glistening on the branches of a bush in a city park, or walk through blossoming heather, or see subtle prismatic colors sparkling in the sunlit snow, or look up to a brilliant night sky, we have a right to praise God and feel His benevolent presence. Giving up material sense evidence in order to spiritualize thought doesn't mean we are left with a void or vacuum. We aren't required to sacrifice any lovely thing that evokes our appreciation and gratitude. We need only give up a material concept of it; as we do, all we sense will be enhanced and be more wonderful than before because we will see it depicted more spiritually.

Sensibility to beauty should not cause pain. We can gladly give up the beliefs that evil has to exist so that good can be defined; that loveliness inevitably turns to ugliness; that dualism and precariousness are inherent in everything. There aren't two universes, one spiritual, the other material. There is only one, and what appears as the material concept is simply a misconception, a reversal or misinterpretation, of the spiritually real. The true universe is without opposites and without opposition. The Christ, Truth, operating in human consciousness, enlightens and transforms our vision to behold this universe, filling our sense of being with the radiance of incomparable Love, the wholeness of Soul.

Part of my friend's sadness in autumn was due to her view of it as a prelude, an announcement, of the season to follow. She dreaded being alone in the coming cold of winter. Yet actually we live with God and in Him, and we can feel the closeness of His warm love and care for us as easily in winter as in spring. Divine Love can't go away somewhere else! Love's messages are present in the deep of winter if we listen and look. We can hear them, see them there in the reflections and clarity of ice, in the pure simplicity of snow, in the encircling vitality of wind.

We have a right to dispense with mental moods that would impose on us a vague, disturbing melancholy. We don't need to concur with an inversion of reality that suggests a false cycle of maturity, decay, death, renewal. The cycles of God are cycles of uninterrupted good. There are many facets in God's nature. Autumn, in its ripeness, can bring us hints of true development, purpose, and identity. Its full sweetness, complementing the delicate newness and promise of spring, can speak to us of timeless maturity.

Occasionally Mrs. Eddy refers to the autumn season. In one instance she writes, "Hold thy gaze to the light, and the iris of faith, more beautiful than the rainbow seen from my window at the close of a balmy autumnal day, will span thy heavens of thought." ^{Mis., p. 355.}

You and I also can experience a beautiful autumn—an autumn illumined by spiritual sense.