Leaves Change Color, And So Do I

It is happening. I would say "again," but that would not do the newness of this feeling any justice. To credit this to cycles or seasons would lessen the eternal impact of these lessons. Granted, in the futility of my humanity, I am bound to learn and re-learn truths as if they never before existed in my mind. There was a philosopher, Plato I believe, who founded a theory called recollection, which held the belief that we come to know fundamental truths by recalling our acquaintance with their eternal objects before birth. This says that all knowledge is ours but we do not know it, and as life goes on and we "learn" something it is only because that truth was awakened in us. So what of the repeats? Each time a lesson is re-learned it is, of course, more familiar and treasured but easily set back on the shelf of volumes of wisdom. When uncovered again, it is clutched and scoured over but never daily remembered. At least, this is mostly true in my own life.

So that is why, if I may venture to say so, I refuse to let all of the color and metaphor in my head in these moments simply be something I once forgot and someday forget. There is an ancient wonder in the turning of leaves and not only the physical aesthetics of it all but the deep spiritual and physiological depiction of death, beauty, and change. I will not have to re-learn this one; it means too much right now.

I was driving to church this morning and noticed how much the scenery has changed in the last week or two - and I do not mean just geographically. In so much as October is my traveling month, I have visited both coasts - west first in California and east next in going home to Virginia. Both trips were incredible and appropriately timed, set in the midst of two of the more pivotal weeks of personal discovery and growth I have ever experienced. These were merely transient and momentary settings for the overall plot, however, one fixed in my mind as the place of adventure and novel territories and the other a place of comfort and roots. Being back - back here in the rolling and green (and yet, not-so-green) hills of Tennessee, though, is where the heart of the story takes place. In my absence, there has been a deep, noticeable transformation.

This is where the trees have come alive in death. Deep and rich shades of green have been traded in for yellows, oranges, reds, browns, and purples that are stunning. The traces of spring exchanged, instead, for the venturing presence of winter. In a matter of months comes the certainty of uncertainty and struggles, but the promise of perseverance and of hope. In one all too short but memorable display of brilliance, the pain becomes necessary and at the demise of long-filled and unnecessary traits, struggles, and fears, there is beauty unlike anything man is capable of creating.

I have learned to face myself and my fears, though I am nowhere near mastering it. I am stepping out in places in my life, though not without traces of accompanying aches. But it is worth it; it is worth it to find traces of old and dead pieces of myself - the me that keeps me from new life - on the proverbial road I take. Every fallen leaf is a reminder of the joy there is in struggles and lessons, and every remaining are a picture of what is taking place, still, in my heart. And in my mind I hear the echoes of scripture, where in the first chapter of James this is addressed. How fitting, too, to find the words used in The Message.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.

These are my true colors, and I want to keep it this way.