All Saints' Day 2023

The sunlight shone through the colorful leaves better than any stained-glass window, and the sound of the leaves crunching beneath my shoes made me walk as if processing down a Cathedral’s center aisle. Breathing deeply, I drank the air as if it was living water. It was one of those days, one of those moments, when believing in the “creator of heaven and earth” was easy.

I knew it was only a matter of time before the oranges, yellows, and reds above me would be blown from their perches and join the sacred dance to the ground like whirling dervishes. The trees would become bare, and leaves turn brown. To everything there is a season, I reminded myself, but part of me wished there was another way.

I pulled myself back from my head to my heart and looked around with renewed appreciation. No, these leaves would not last, but there would be others. The leaves above would soon become part of the soil below. That soil would feed the trees so that they could bring forth a new canopy of shade and color. In that way, the leaves of today are a part of tomorrow’s, which will be a part of those that come after them.

I cannot help but think back on the people I’ve known, the great cloud of witnesses through whom God’s light shone in unmistakable ways. Often, I stood and looked in awe and wished they would be with me forever, but I learned early that they, like the leaves above me, would be blown into the sacred dance and away from my sight. I miss their color. I miss their shade. But I trust they remain a part of this circle of life. Someway, somehow, they remain, for everything is connected, and everything belongs.

More than any day of the year, this is the day I cling to that truth and cherish that hope.