I sit at my desk and listen to the wind.

Change is coming.

At the end of the street, the last leaves from an autumn, very nearly forgotten, whirl and take flight.  The commotion is impressive to the casual witness—less so to one who has observed the scene from the vantage point of my window over the last couple of months.

From his play, Macbeth, Mr. Shakespeare’s description of life seems apropos:

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The leaves go in circles.  Now to the end of the road, now across to one yard to lie breathless for a time.  With the next gust of wind, they revive, shoving each other aside in their hurry to rise on the current, only to scurry back around the cul-de-sac and alight once more.  Right back where they started.

Probably, within feet of where they tumbled from the tall oak trees last fall.

Going nowhere fast.

But the wind roars still.  Through limbs of trees, standing naked in the late winter sun, it shoves—and grabs—and pulls.  Like so many windmills twirling in the sky, the giant oaks twist their extremities this way and that, almost it seems, trying to catch hold of the leaves spinning below.

I’m sure it may be only my imagination—it is my imagination, isn’t it?—but, for just a moment—the barest hint of a moment—I have the idea that they would—if they could—reattach themselves to the leaves that abandoned them mere weeks ago.

What a silly notion.  Old dead leaves are of no use to the trees now, save possibly to nourish the ground around them as the natural process of decay and deterioration does its work.

I know this wind is blowing in another change in the weather.  A warm day today, but cool again tomorrow with the front blowing in.  Spring is coming.  Rain will fall. Stronger winds than these will swirl and stream through the treetops.

Even now, the mostly sleeping giants are showing tiny dark nubs on the spindly ends of their gray branches, nubs that will become leaves.  They will be new, green, living things—luxurious and lush—covering the entire tree with vitality and vigor.

And yet. . .  And yet today, the towering trees are naked—bereft of their former glory.

The wind blows, and merely accentuates their lack—adding insult to injury, the red-headed lady who raised me would have said.  Surely, there is something about which one could complain.

But, you know, as much as I prefer spring to winter, as much as I love a leaf-covered tree more than a bare one, I would never look at a tree in winter and suggest it would be better off with the old leaves back on it.

I complain frequently about winter, suggesting that everything is dead.  I am reminded, as I sit in my chair and watch the empty branches wave, that the tree has never been dead.  Never.

It is simply directing all its resources to the roots underground and getting ready for something spectacular to happen.  A little rest before breaking out.

It seems to me that things are a little drab right now.

Am I the only one who thinks about the past and how good that life was?  Am I the only one who wishes I could turn back the calendar a season?

Do you think we really could put the old dry leaves back on the trees?  No, I suppose not.

But, here is what I know.  Without worry of being proven wrong, I know it is true.

The earth turns and revolves around the sun; the wind blows and the rain falls.  Suddenly, without warning—well, almost without warning—the explosion of color and life will be upon us.

To everything, there is a season; a time for every purpose under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

And, the Creator has made everything to be right in its season.

And, He puts eternity in our hearts so we know to look ahead and not behind.

He puts eternity in our hearts so we know to look ahead and not behind. Share on X

Seasons come.  They go.  Sometimes, we are so busy, we have no time to consider the work He is doing in us.  But, we gain strength; and, we grow.

Sometimes, in the drab time, we sit and contemplate the reason for our very existence.  That also, is a season through which He moves us and makes us stronger.

And, sometimes, as they have this week, tears come.

And the tears, like the rain which has just begun outside my window, fall to the ground and water the future, to ensure that it will be brighter.  

Through tears, and even a little bit of dreariness, He will bring us, step by weary step—to spring once again.

There are indeed, Mr. Lewis, far better things that lie ahead than any we’ve left behind.

I wonder if the wind will still be blowing.

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.
(J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring )

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2018. All Rights Reserved.