Blowing Leaves

I was leaving the house to walk the dogs this morning and I noticed that every single inch of the ground where on Friday I had mulched up leaves and relocated them to our back garden was covered once more with more leaves. The wind and the rains of Saturday and early Sunday had coaxed the maple tree that straddles the property line between our house and our neighbor’s house to drop more leaves and blow them to our side of the property line. 

Friday had been the second time I had mulched leaves, and I knew–like years gone by–it wouldn’t be the last. This is our autumnal routine–the dance of repurposing–we run over the leaves with our mower, mulching them into the mower’s bag. When full, we dump the mower bag’s mulched contents onto a tarp. When the tarp gets full enough, we take it to our backyard and dump it onto the garden where the leaves can help protect the garlic bulbs my spouse planted as they weather the storms of winter while dreaming of spring from just under the soil. Lather. Rinse. Repeat as needed. 

As I walked the dogs, I kept thinking of this routine. The regularity with which it happens. The way its timing is a little different every year, but also how the fact that it happens remains the same. It’s not a matter of IF the tree will drop its leaves, or IF they will blow our way, it’s a matter of WHEN. Nature does what nature has always done. She is something we can count on at times when it feels as if we will never be able to count on anything again. Nature does what it does. Over and over again in a beautiful, cyclical movement that is brand new and remarkably familiar all at once. 

The only choice we ever have in the matter is what we will do with the leaves when they do blow our way. Will we let them blanket the grass so heavily that they choke everything out? Will we simply hope that our neighbors do something with them before they cross property lines? Will we wait and see if they keep on blowing into someone else’s yard and become someone else’s problem? Or will we decide to join into Nature’s dance–mulching, collecting, and repurposing what has been laid before us so that beauty, growth, and change can emerge from what lies fallow now?

I can’t answer those questions for you, but I can share with you that as I walked this morning, and I thought about those leaves and the routine we’ve chosen to be a part of for the past 4 ½ years that we’ve lived here, I wept. I wept as I thought about how nothing seems to make sense anymore. I wept as I thought about how no matter what proverbial rug I step on, it always seems to be ripped out from under me. I wept as I thought of all of the questions I do have, and all of the answers I don’t. I wept and I walked and I thought of those leaves.

And I found that I was comforted. I am comforted. Comforted by the regularity of Nature and her offerings that know no bounds. Comforted by the accessibility of her lessons for all who would dare to notice them. Comforted by the unending invitation she extends to each of us to find our place in a larger story than the one right in front of us–the one we’re hyper fixated on at the moment–the one on our phones, on the news, in our families of origin, at the supper table, our places of work, and even in our own hearts. A story as old as time–whose plot line never changes–but whose characters always do.  

I’m finding comfort in this routine–this regularity–this thing that goes on without my intervention. It’s something I can count on–that you can count on too. And, I don’t know about you, but I really want to be able to count on something right now 

So I’m going to look to the trees, and the leaves, and the Table that God has spread before me in Nature, and I’m going to come to that Table again…and again. I’m going to let myself be fed there, and nourished there, and reminded of the old, old story there, and choose to let myself become a part of it. To remind myself that the stories in my immediate vicinity are not the only stories being written–there’s another being written not on computers or feeds or printed pages, but all around us–in golden leaves, in dampened grass, under the earth, in the soil. The gifts of God, for we, the people of God, inviting us to come to the Table for all has been made ready.

I pray you’ll join me there,
Pr. Melissa

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