This essay is still under construction, read at your own risk:
As I was raking the leaves today I became overwhelmed with the number of leaves to clean up with 7 maple trees in our yard, 6 in the back and 1 huge Red Maple in front, the striking kind that makes everyone look. The kind that makes everyone wish they lived on that particular street in the fall.
Our trees drop a mess in May, a mess in June and a huge mess in November. The tree in front must be a female tree because it produces little red flowers before any leaves begin to sprout. Looking up into the tree with the clear blue sky as the backdrop, you see clusters of tiny red berries and suddenly they burst into tiny red flowers, dropping as soon as the samaras begin to grow. Remember those things that children call ‘helicopters’ that fly out of the maple trees in late spring? Well, they are officially called the samaras and were super fun to play with as a child. Back to the messes. I spend a good couple of days raking up and sweeping the dead flower clusters in May and just when school lets out and our summer gets going, there is another big drop of helicopters (samaras) in June and another thorough sweeping is required. But be prepared for the fall when we have to fill twenty-plus big black bags with the dead leaves. And it is not a one day process.
This year, in particular, the cold happened early on for a day or two and then it warmed up for a month. Once again, the front tree was spectacular. Friends and neighbors sent texts and emails, even photos of our tree complimenting how impressive and beautiful it was. Even perfect strangers talk about that incredible tree on 900 East and proudly I claim it and instantly I become famous. Okay, that is slight hyperbole, but seriously, the tree is magnificently conspicuous.
Unfortunately, I was unable to enjoy the fiery show of my Red Maple this year as I was in another state with my oldest daughter and her family for a couple of weeks while she had her fifth baby and my seventh grandchild. However, like clockwork, I received texts and comments about my beautiful tree. When I arrived home, the tree was covered with almost all of its leaves still, but they had begun to turn from the flaming red to a reddish-brown indicating the leaves would soon drop. I waited to rake the few that had already fallen since others would soon join them and I could get more in one sitting, but the days were warm and the wind was absent causing the leaves to cling onto the branches. Hannah and I made our way outside to rake what had been there on the ground, thinking that soon the others would fall and we would bag them up before the cold and wind came. However grand the plan, there is always another Planner who knows more than we do. Nature whipped up a wind storm during the night last week and loosened the grip of most of our leaves and swept them into the yards of all my close neighbors. I woke with a dread that we had deliberately “shared” the work of gathering to all my dear friends. Ugh, would I need to go rake everyone’s yard? The dreaded mess in everyone’s yard overwhelmed me and I choked on it for a while until I wondered whether it was not my fault or not. I reasoned that I had done all that I could possibly do and that it was surely the work of Mother Nature. Everyone would understand, right? Besides, the wind continued to blow and so the leaves would continue to migrate into other yards more distant. Back and forth I went in my mind, but there has to come a time when you realize that you just cannot control things that you have no control over, therefore I decided I would pick up only the leaves on my property currently and let the rest of my neighbors deal with those that mother nature had so carelessly planted in their yards.
I figuratively rolled up my sleeves and began to rake what was left in my yard, driveway, and gutter. Dave came out to help and we raked, gathered, and bagged for at least two hours. Most of the leaves were in the back yard where 6 tall maple trees reside. It seemed as though we were not making much of a dent while the clocked ticked on. The weather app said that snow would come each day next week starting on Monday and today was Saturday. We estimated that a foot of snow would fall over a 6 day period. We had limited time before having to head into town for a reception and became conscious that we would not finish in time before the snow covered the rest.
My mind had been pondering on the overwhelming messiness of the leaves, the wind, the work to clean up, the effort of being responsible owners, and all the emotion and reason that accompanies it. I compared all this to life and how life is messy too. And it matters a great deal if I deal with the mess in a responsible manner; cleaning up, fixing, bagging and disposing of the mess of mortality in a moral and ethical manner.
I thought of a loved one who has intentionally left the faith of his childhood and dragged his children with him through the messy process of a faith crisis. His actions have pulled him away from everything he has held dear and he is left alone with himself and his buddies who support him. He has willfully and deliberately sought to influence any and all to join his crisis campaign in an attempt to justify and validate his actions and beliefs. For three years I have been watching the wind blow him and his children around. Each has lost the connection to their branches—their anchor against the storms—and are willfully living in a whirlwind of falsehoods, deceit, dishonesty, unfaithfulness, and deceptiveness. Just as the wind blew my leaves in all directions and into the yards of my neighbors, his actions have affected everyone around him in a tremendous way. His irresponsibility has blinded him to the mess and has enshrouded him with false comfort and well-being while his children are on the path of self-destruction.
How do you stop people from doing stupid things? How do you help them see what they are blind to? How do you talk to them? What could he have done differently to not have fallen into the trap of the Destroyer? What could I have done differently? My head is churning, my heart is burning, I go back and forth in my mind whether there is something I can do or not. There is not. These things are the “leaves that have blown into another’s yard” and are not mine to clean up. I can only clean myself up. I can only be responsible to make my life clean and pure. I can bag up the baggage and throw it away leaving only the best me; handing over my natural self and making my will God’s will. And in that manner, I will be divinely empowered to clean up any mess my life or the life of others produce.
As C. S. Lewis says,
‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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