For Fall
How often do I refrain from you Lord; how long must I rush from your gaze.
Father, how far I’ve ventured into temporary affection because communion and intimacy panicked me.
And yet, I am rarely-truly-still.
Frequent, I find myself in semblance of the wood of a ship. I feel tossed about.
I feel the cold and frothing waves pressed against my bones. I am straining to cover ground against rough seas and cruel winds.
The roar and rumble of the stormy grey, and the iron blue waves leave the very grain of the wood restless.
My beams and ropes ache and groan; tossed thirty feet upward and yet two feet forward. I can feel the cracks in my heart deepen and split and splinter the wood deeper and harsher. The damp cold soaks into my soul and sails. The cold spray impresses itself into the framework of my vessel.
And yet,
Truth.
Maybe I am more like the autumn leaf. Radiant and joy giving in a season of change. And as the cool and gentle wind grips the edges of my being- I am sweetly separated from the tree. As a kind father gently lowers a child after lifting them to soar, a gentle embrace lays me down in the sun. This season draws to an end. It has been all things: warm and nurturing, hot and withering, and fully known. All stages of life bursting with color and purpose. Everything from the end of a winter, to the slow and gentle farewell of the fall.
A new season
A season of rich trust
A season of parting and hailing
I will never be on the same branch with the same leaves again. No- we were so carefully grown, and the Wind sent us.
Each of us to our own purpose. Each of us built, and crafted for a different function; grown individually, so that we might catch the wind variously. Our wings spreading from the skeleton of the leaf to catch the light, to curve and float. To bring beauty, to bear life, to bring warmth. To land as gently as a kiss. To hold so gentle an embrace.
To bring Joy. To be sent. To catch the wind.
How knowing the Gardener- How brilliant the Author- How kind a Father- How thoughtful a Friend- How loyal a Brother- How gentle a Lover- How skilled the Builder- How detailed a Potter.
