One of my favorite seasons is fall. I love the ways the trees yield their glory to enter the dormant season before rebirth. It is a cycle of life I resonate to. And now we have moved. And we steward amazing trees! And I waited, because I was sure the trees in OUR yard would look more glorious than any one else’s. I expected our trees to make me proud! We have white oaks, pin oaks, lots of bur oak, and I thought…red.
But nothing is red.
And the oak trees are not turning.
And the hickory trees are a sweet golden, but we have no red in our yard.
And as I feel disappointed, I have to examine why.
I expected the trees to be glorious to please me.
I take it personally.
Instead of the maturity of knowing that I get to steward what I am a small part of, and seeing the beauty of it all, I was in the selfish immaturity of assuming whatever happens around me is because of me and about me. That is the way a child thinks. Oh dear.
I was also grumbling because every one in the family had seen deer but me.
This morning I watched as a mother doe and her two young followed her across our back yard.
It was mothering at its finest.
Leap quickly through the open fields. And pause and listen when you get to the woods. Go slow and blend.
She taught by her model. They followed.
And I felt special, for a moment. Like it had something to do with me because I witnessed it. And surely witnessing the doe was more important than witnessing the coyote I saw in our back yard the first week.
I realize I have been in a dating relationship with the earth.
I have enjoyed it when it pleased me.
And I have stewarded haphazardly with the underlying expectation that if I cared for it, it would do what I wanted it to.
This morning I find myself in repentance about that. It is a gift of God that I get to be a part of this big wide world.
All of it.
And there is fresh commitment in me to love creation the way he does.
I remember him telling me I would not have the wisdom to direct the snapping turtles to go elsewhere until I love them the way he does. I knew it was wisdom but here is a deeper level.
This is not the wisdom the world values.
To them it appears as foolishness.
But for me it is the next season of growing in the ways of love.
It is the commitment a wife makes, to steward what belongs to her husband. Instead of a girlfriend, who wonders what it will be like in an unrealistic way.
He knew the doe would come today, to teach her children in front of me.
He knew I would learn too.
Surely he does all things well.
Just look at my life.