As the leaves in me begin to lose their green and begin to reveal the true colors of my heart, I too begin to be honest with myself, to see the meaning of each leaf, to call on the Lord, to beg Him to give me the gift of His sight, His light upon the leaves falling, the structure of the branches grown over decades, the soil I've rooted myself within.
Little by little, because I am little, He answers me.
I think back to the spring, that long spring flowing into the summer of my life, when I threw out branches to the different suns in my life, and then, through the storms, made choices to let branches and all their dependent leaves die; I thought I alone chose the direction of my growth, the structure of my tree: In some way, I did. I did, and the roots grew, but most often--young and flexible, hubristic and flamboyant--I was not aware of the deeper soils and the true sun beyond all the others flitting across the sky of my life.
Now, as my branches grow too tall for this garden, this world, now as my desires bend to be transplanted into the soil that never freezes, never fails, now as my desire is to live, forever green, in the place that needs no sun, because You are the light, I look with You at the tree I have become. I am full, and golden, and at times, deeply sad and deeply joyful all at once. These two co-exist in the fall of life, when You stand with me on the bridge between youth and old age.
I remember the suns I once reveled under, and how, mysteriously, I made the choice to turn from them, to seek beyond them, and I asked you for Your help. You moved me from a wild soil outside to the soil within Your walled garden, and I chafed, and still chafe, sometimes; sometimes, the branches within me bend to a faraway, long ago wind, and I ask you why you have given me these walls so that I cannot see the sea, and the watered air, full of colours I loved.
I see, through the years, younger trees than me, smaller, and more green, uprooted, taken, o'erleaping the walls of this life, and I wait, still rooted in the soil you've given me. I sometimes feel as if I want to grow beyond the wall; a leaf on a tiny branch peeks over towards the sound of water crashing, and my heart grieves the loss of summer, the losses of far-gone winds, suns, and soils; sometimes then you have pruned me and parched me.
Little by little, through my original replanting, and the on-going pruning and parching and watering with choice water, You are answering me.
You answered me when I called you when in the wild, on the cliffs by the sea, after losing all my leaves and most of my branches in the storms; you called me to Yourself when you called me to the garden in which I now grow. Within its limitations, its walls, its seasons and breezes, its rain and frozen months, here have I grown the fruit you knew I had within me; here have I, in times of pruning and growth, become what you called me, that which within me was your call calling to you.
Your garden, the garden you made for me, is my desert, my convent, my bridal bed, my threshing floor, my altar, my candle, my creation with You, the small place which is larger than the cosmos, because it contains You, within me. Each sadness, each narrowness, each pain, each joy, each child sitting on a branch, each love watering me, each storm, and the lengthening years adding concentric rings, is given meaning in the call You rang out, the answer You gave then, on a late summer's day so long ago in the wild along the stormy sea, the call still ringing out with layered tones now, a symphony of severe mercy and fiery love that draws me on.
