I love the fall in the northeast. The riotous colors of autumn
leaves never cease to delight me. What an outrageous gift, that God would endow
the trees with the ability to surrender their summer growth with such
magnificence. “Just look at those trees!” I exclaimed to my daughter as we left
the house this morning. “You smile every time you walk out the door these
days,” she commented. I hadn’t realized. Now, as I contemplate this single leaf
and its place in the divine economy, I think of my own life held in God’s
hands. Are not the transitions in human life also evidence of God’s
extravagance? “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today
and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of
little faith?” (Matthew 6:30) As we cycle through the seasons, as we age,
surrender, make new beginnings, we also show forth the beauty of God’s
creation. We embody loveliness. The glory of God that shines forth in a fall
leaf also emanates from each human being, each of us created in God’s image.
The wind and rain of the day will hurry the leaves off the
branches and soon bare twigs will cut patterns across a pale winter sky. I hope
I notice that moment too. I pray I will stop then, and give thanks to God. For
the beauty of creation, for the rhythm of the seasons, for the gift of time and
the experience that comes with aging. For the ability to delight in a single
fall leaf, again, and again, and again.
copyright © Anne E. Kitch 2013
copyright © Anne E. Kitch 2013