OCTOBER, to my mind, is the most autumnal month.

September can, on occasion, feel like the tail-end of summer; by November we’re definitely edging into winter.

October feels like the tipping point between the two – there’s far too much rain, but mornings are still “crisp” rather than “cold”, and the trees are every shade from green to deep red, rather than uniformly bare.

When I was young, October was all about conkers, half-term holidays and the sudden jump to dark evenings when the clock changed (which always felt like the first heralding of a still-distant Christmas).

As an adult, it’s more about drying all the laundry indoors, switching to warmer socks and increasingly lengthy to-do lists of things that must be done before the end of the year (which no longer feels distant at all).

Either way, October has always felt like a month of transition, moving from one thing to the next.

It reminds me of the passage that starts “There’s a time for everything”, from the biblical book Ecclesiastes [ek-lee-see-ass-tees, pronunciation fans], a relatively short pondering on the meaning of life. Everything comes and goes, says the writer – the seasons, mourning and dancing, love and hate, war and peace.

But if everything is just a passing blip in the endless churn of seasons and years, does anything really matter?

Well, yes, says the writer; what matters is to live in the present.

Often our thoughts are elsewhere – looking ahead to the next big thing, or backwards to something we’ve lost: the child anticipating Christmas, or the adult already missing the summer.

We rest on our laurels, or regret our losses, anticipate success or disaster, or both. We are anywhere but here and now. 

Ecclesiastes suggests that none of that is important, not least because both past and future are beyond our control.

Instead, we can find meaning in living to do good right now.

Not to gain some sort of reward in the future, or even to set right a wrong in the past; to do good because, in the moment, that’s as much as we can do.

So perhaps I can suggest this: throughout October, let go of yesterday and stop worrying about tomorrow.

Instead, no matter how small it may feel, look for the good you can do each day, and then do it.

Dave Poulson

Associate Pastor

Crediton Congregational Church