The Wisdom of Trees

During this time of year, the wind speaks in soft, tingling whispers of change and mystery across the back of your neck. The warm voice brushes through the auburn color of the fading summer leaves as their life force seeps from the spidery veins. The gold-tipped leaves drift to the earth like dying souls to encase the ground in electric color. Their vitality slowly fades from their tips back into the earth to sleep until the awakening song of spring. The home they left behind stands exposed and naked; the soul of the tree left waiting until the birth of spring.

Just as these leaves make a tree beautiful and pleasing to the eye so our bodies do the same for our souls. When the leaves fall, a tree is still a tree. The only thing that has changed is it's outward appearance.

Jesus' promise to humanity, to you and I, is that that finality of death does not have to be your future, but to be born a new in Heaven. God does not want our lives to end when we die on this Earth. He promises this in Exodus 23:20 when He says, "See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared." And then in John 14:6, Jesus proclaims, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." By accepting that Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, then death is nothing more than a birth into a new life. For another journey to begin, another must come to an end.

This is the divine wisdom of the trees which God created in order to calm our fears of death. Nature is composed of cycles of birth, life, death and rebirth. When a tree looses its leaves, it is a wonderfully vibrant and awe-inspiring sight. Even thought this beauty does not last, a tree is still a tree. The leaves are nothing more than a facade just as our physical bodies are a facade to our true self. We still exist after we leave these earthly bodies just as the trunk and branches of a tree continue to live after the fall of their leaves.

So do not mourn the falling leaves and the naked trees for their rebirth will come after the winter snows. In your own life, do not mourn for those who pass from this life, but celebrate their vibrancy and the joy they brought in the lives they touched. Celebrate and be thankful for the shade and comfort they gave in times of sorrow and difficulty, rejoice in the memories they leave behind, and take comfort in the knowledge that once your own rebirth happens, you will be with them again.

This post is dedicated to the life and memory of my crazy, energetic, loving friend, Mary Ambrose, and for those of us left behind.