Song of the Leaves

Dear Pilgrim,

Leaves scuttle and turn handsprings, racing rubber tires to the stop line, rushing to get out of the way. They laugh their way along, one great final fling in the season’s dimming lights. Their purpose served, their role played, their moment passed, and they fall like a curtain to close autumn’s act.

Why do they flutter so, when their day is done? Script concluded, all their lines performed, no more cues from phloem and xylem; no more prompting from mother tree, no more food. But they won’t die without a last dance. And the very winds that drive them from their trees become the music to their farewell jig.

Yes, they will settle into some lee or nook or grassy bed, out of the wind’s grasp, out of the elements, and there they will decompose, to give life to others. They don’t have life to fly in the face of their demise; but they still fly. Their green and golden dresses fade from the lights of summer’s scene, but they twirl anyway. They are going off stage for good, but they skip and tap dance out.

Why? Why not just fall like lead and lay where you land, and let yourselves be forgotten? Or why not mound and pile at the base of your trees, and make an edifice—however shortly lived—to your glory? Or why not moan and clog and haunt us with your death, menacing our lives with memory of yours?

Why? Because they groan with hope, longing for consummation. Their scene closes; the final act is yet to be performed. In life, they sing the Creator’s song, clapping their hands to His breathes of wind, lifting limb and hand in exultation. Now stiffening, they echo crisp and clear the song of ever-deeper life. They touched the sky in life, saw rain and hail and snow and mist, held bird and secrets from the air. And now they fall to earth, and touch it with heaven’s promise: little taps of leaf-Morse-code along the pavement, gentle caresses on grass that’s seen abuse and beating all year. They even travel to pond and ditch, where stagnant waters ripple with ticklish glee at their arrival.

Leaf’s demise brings the promise of winter rest, and the hope of spring. Trees always seem happy. I think it’s because they have learned the secret of being miserable without despairing, the way to endure pain without suffering, the way to die in order to live. And they teach it to their children, whose pods and seeds fly like the leaves and nestle in fertile crevices, spreading the happiness of hopeful labouring through a groaning creation.

In all your fallings today, may you reach for the hope of life, resurrection life, that brings beauty from demise, joy from misery, glory from barrenness. Listen to the song of the leaves, and take heart, because Life's play belongs to the Creator.

To Number our Days

Today, I have lived on earth for ten thousand days. And I look back, and wonder, and ponder.

Of those ten thousand days, there has been food for every meal I chose to eat. I’ve owned, or been given enough clothes to stay warm in the long winters, and cool in the unpredictable summers. Placed in a family of mathematicians, artists, athletes, musicians, and problem solvers, I’ve always felt like an oddball. But I’ve been accepted, supported, and unconditionally loved.

Six church families have taught me what it means to belong to God, and what it looks like when God constructs thought, action, and affection. Girls once playing house now swaddle their own babies. Boys climbing trees now build houses for their families and neighbours. And I watch, and cheer, and join in the adventures; and grapple with the changing relationships. So many people, so many stories, so many inextricably complex souls brushing my own.

How little of what I planned and dreamed actually happened! How beyond my expectations has been my experience! I grieve the unrealized imaginings, even while acknowledging their weakness, and my ignorance in wishing them. And I baffle at the unaccountable adventures, the methods and means that changed my hopes, and gave me what I really wanted . . . and could not have asked for.

I’m dumbfounded by my foolishness, all the things I’ve squandered, all the opportunities I’ve wasted, all the emotions I’ve pilfered on fickle dreams. I’m amazed at the grace I’ve been given, a power to love what I did not desire, to venture where I had no interest going, to follow away when I wanted to stay and build my castles in the sand. I boggle at the sheer mercy—a hand laid gentle on me, encompassing, shielding, stopping, redirecting.

The further I follow, the less I know what to wish for. The more I’m able to do, the less I know what to do. But what I do does not matter as much as what I love. And maybe all this wandering is designed for me, so I can love what is Best.

l remember the days. I ask God to teach me to number them, so I can gain a heart of wisdom. And at the end of the day, I remember, and want to be reminded always, that I belong to God, and God has given Himself to me.

Today, my hero said: The joy is having the Beloved, not loving what we have. (www.aholyexperience.com )She is right.

So I pray, as Moses did, “Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days . . . and let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us.” Psalm 90:14,17

Promise in Dust

The living air exhales caramel breaths—warm, golden, delicious. Every breeze wafts a new hue across the senses.

Sky blinks cloudless, batting blue eyes. As though straining with the labourers, she flushes deeper pigment—and puddle and slough reflect her cobalt complexion.

Grass exchanges velvet green coats for linen browns, transforming assumed undergrowth into a menagerie of bristle, straw, mulch clump, and dulling emeralds.

And in the evening light, even dust glimmers beauty. Suspended like organza sashes of some grand dancer, it floats and lingers, slivers of milky mist, whiffs of toffee.

Sweeping, inviting, lingering—dust envelopes the pilgrim, calling deeper, pointing beyond; hinting, always hinting, making one look and ponder.

The fields waiting consummation, grain laying dead in bundled rows—silent, still, finished. Soon it will be in bin and truck and terminal, this living death of waiting, till at last it can die again in soil, and truly live. Machines churning in procession, orderly, stoic, pitiless, dutiful; their drivers squinting in receding sun. Saved all year, for these ten days of labour, red and green and yellow they plod; cutting, collecting, shelling, saving the promises in hopper and auger.

Soon, it will pass. Soon, machines will rest in Quonset, seeds will wait in bins, farmers will break for winter blizzards. Next year, we will do it all over again. We will hope, and pray, and wish each other well as we work the land, and the soil works into us.

Colours deepen, then fade. A giant Canada goose points south, stationary, glimmering, then withering into wisp of cloud.

We sigh with the land. We fade with the land. We groan with the land. And we bear fruit, in season, like the land, our lives reflecting and refracting colour from the Light of Life.

And we, with the land, remember, and live promise.

“While the earth remains,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
winter and summer,
and day and night,
shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22

Forfeit Shame

Emptiness haunts her footsteps, a gaping shadow threatening to engulf her present and paralyze her future. Hollow legacy, like wind sweeping through sterile plain gouged and filled its own chasm in her heart. What was the point of her life if she could not give life to another?

Taunted every moment by happy squeals of another woman’s children, their joy doubling her anguish, she suffered silent. Each successful pregnancy, each living child cut into her soul, the children’s mother knew it, and used it to mock and malign the devalued woman.

Her generous husband loved her, but supposed he could fill her void with himself. She knew he meant well, but his presumptive evaluation of his own worth slit her soul. He did not understand. He would not enter her grief. He would not go where he was not enough. She was still alone.

Her rival’s pride enshrined her in unattainable superiority, and her own shame thrust her into untouchable estrangement. Hot teary rivers stained her cheeks salty white; her stomach repulsed food—what was the point in nourishing this living isolation? Daily function kept her moving, a hollow, listless life.

Then, she capitulated. How it happened, and when, she did not know. It had something to do with Shiloh, the tabernacle, making the yearly trek to worship as a family. She neared the tent of The Presence, where God came to commune with His people. God . . . the Creator, the God-Who-Sees-me, the Covenant-Maker—stories of His intervention through history flooded into her soul. God: the One Who makes barren, and gives life, the One Who owns the fortunes and destinies of man. This God, it was about Him, it was up to Him. Her quarrel was not with her rival, her husband, her community, her culture; it was with her God.

And in worship, the dike broke: she wept liquid anguish, all the bitterness heaving from her soul. Convulsed, speechless, crumpled helpless before God, she remembered His reality: the Lord of hosts. God was God, and she was not.

And in worship, she found her place: a life forfeit, a life surrendered, a life from God, for God. That’s all she was. And it was enough.

And any fruit from her life would be forfeit. No echelon of pride, no pit of shame, no emptiness or fullness—nothing was hers to claim as her own. She lost distinction, and found identity in belonging to God. Here, nothing could touch her, nothing could destroy her, because her whole existence was bound up in the reality of God.

That’s what worship does—it frees us from our beneficial and detrimental confines, and draws our eyes up, to see the Reality beyond us. This God commands our worship, designed us for worship, because He knows it is where we will be fully alive.

Lord, help us, like Hannah, worship You, and succumb to Your utter reality washing, cutting, defining, and filling our entire existence.

Thoughts from 1 Samuel 1

Shimmering Air

Early in the morning—too early for one who’d gone to bed at 10:30 and 12:00 previous evenings—I rouse off the chesterfield. Sun’s already up, and the day basking in her smile. Pack last few items of food and clothing, then drive quiet out the lane. Road stretches long and silent. It is early, and it is Sunday.

Follow along, through border crossing, into mountain country. There, I find the prize, the campground of friends. We sort and pack and laugh light in morning levity. We’re endeavouring a 15-mile hike today. We start later than planned, but no one minds. I settle with ease into this loving family of artists and dreamers.

So we begin, our trek revealing nuggets of beauty in the world, and in each other. Each person is a treasure trove, as they open up and share, I see the glimmer and beauty of soul, and know even deeper that this one is precious.

So we delve, we march, we balance, we tiptoe, on and on in this journey. Exploration gives way to awe, to praise, then to the contented silence of kindled, deepened enjoyment and wonder. We inhale shimmering air, the vistas glimmer in happy haze, and we feel alive.

Some of us take our own dare to climb an extra two miles to the fire lookout. Why, we cannot say, except for the mere adventure of it all. A gruelling ascent, and we question our sanity. But at the top, it’s all worth the effort. We gaze for ages, further into the mountain range, deeper to the distant camp, and beyond to the flattened prairies, basking in their own unique glory.

Then we go down, descending for half the journey. Its ease comes laced with specialized pain, danger, and glory. Our perspective diminishes as we sink lower into the engulfing crevices. We talk less and listen more. Legs turn to jelly, hands swell, tongues crave water, and hearts long for comforts and rest of camp.

Sun sets as we arrive, move slow, linger long over hot dinner, and talk deep into the black night.

The stars above us sing and beam with pleasure. We look up, and know we are small, know we are known, know we are loved.

And our every breath echoes creation’s symphony.