A Brief Theology of Fall Color

The brilliant colors of creation are often biologically helpful, sometimes in more ways than one. A coral reef’s vibrant palette protects against the sun’s ultraviolet rays, and at the same time helps the coral attract mates. The bright hues of flowers lure pollinating insects and birds.

So what about the colors of fall foliage?

Many leaves contain yellow and orange pigments all year round, but in the spring and summer they’re masked by the vivid greens of chlorophyll, the pigment responsible for the absorption of light to provide energy for photosynthesis. But as the days shorten and the temperature falls, the chlorophyll breaks down and drains away — and those yellows and oranges begin to shine through. They were there all along, quiet and unnoticed, but now they emerge as the green curtain fades. If God is a painter of autumn trees, what we see is an art not of addition but of subtraction. It’s an art of revelation, of revealing the hidden beauty of what was already there.

But what about those stunning reds? Those pigments appear when the leftover sugars in certain leaves are transformed into anthocyanins, red and purple pigments. And that transformation, incidentally, is most intense where there is the most light — which is why the leaves (or even the parts of leaves) most bathed in sunlight are the most deeply red of all. Ditto for the sunny sides of apples; that’s where the crimsons emerge. Like coral in the ocean, the reds and purples help protect leaves from the Sun’s power as the chlorophyll drains away. As it turns out, then, the Divine Artist paints not only by revelation, but also by transformation and protection.

So the next time you take a walk or a bike ride through a landscape alive with changing fall foliage, recall that this grand spectacle — arguably one of the most beautiful annual changes in the world — is a sheer riot of divine glory, a tide of splendor flooding the world with revelation (the yellows and oranges) and transformative protection (the reds and purples).

A divine sermon in pigment and light, shimmering for all who have eyes to see.

Happy fall, everyone!

Peace,
The SALT Team