Here is a paragraph I read that helps me understand what I think the poem and tune "Autumn Leaves" (see post below) can teach us about Christian "attunement" (how we get into sync with God and the world):
"Among the phenomena, you and all other persons constitute the most emphatic and enigmatic presence of the hidden 'Presence' that challenges me 'in' and 'as' the (visible and invisible) universe. Your facing me is the most impressive way in which God's blinding obscurity and thundering silence calls for an appropriate response. Amazingly, the most accurate revelation of that Presence occurs in the humiliation of innocent persons who accept their passion as the sacrament of the God's compassion. The human history of this compassion is the phenomenon in which God's givenness crosses the boundary between phenomenal self-sufficiency and the dimension of a very para-doxical attunement.
"This attunement is a pathos. The Christian tradition of 'spiritual' life has described it through a constellation of words like 'acceptance,' 'confidence,' 'patience,' 'kenosis,' 'humility,' 'sacrifice,' and 'mortification.' Though overuse has worn them out, these words may still be reanimated, on the condition that we think their content as inseparably united with gratitude, loyalty toward the earth, enjoyment of life, and hopeful reaching out to the always already present and still desired proximity of the hidden Speech."
Adriaan Peperzak, "Affective Theology/ Theological Affectivity," in Between Philosophy and Theology, p. 167.
Another Autumn Song:
Justin Hayward -Forever Autumn
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