Today’s find: Bagged

After 31 autumns (give or take) in this place, you’d think I’d learn: what seems at the outset like a “3-bag job” will inevitably require more.

Often, substantially more. In the present Leaf-Raking Season, the count grew to five yard-waste bags. Turns out, that was just the opening offer from our majestic silver maple. 

Four days after my initial pass with the rake, I noticed to my distress how the ground beneath the tree had been thoroughly re-blanketed…with still more leaves perched mockingly in the branches overhead, awaiting the time of their descent.

That’s one way to look at things, I guess: Falling leaves, an annoyance at best – a clean-up task defying efficient disposition. But this is rather a neurotic perspective, is it not? “Leaves as Enemy,” evoking reaction…collection…destruction. Repeating a cycle whose lessons remain unlearned after more than two dozen tries.

My leaf-haste and frustration are what garner my attention this day, as we draw near to the close of the liturgical year. Today’s scripture readings speak of apocalypse and end-times – confounding lessons, to my mind and spirit. Which is perhaps why I feel inclined to rush right past them: bag ‘em up, and haul them away…for contemplation some other day.

But Jesus calls me to something different: “Learn a lesson from the fig tree,” he tells his disciples as he teaches them about his coming passion – the darkness and destruction that lie dead-ahead. 

Don’t be deceived by the bare branches, he seems to say. The darkness does not win. “Learn a lesson from the fig tree,” he teaches in his confounding way. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”

And I am inclined to note that this is a promise on which it is best to linger – not something to be hastily bagged and hauled away.

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS