Autumn Leaves and Resurrection

It's already December, but in Memphis, some days still have very much a fall feeling to them. And every fall, the piercing blue skies, crisp air, and turning leaves take me back to my freshman year of college.


Fall had always been my favorite season, and on this particular day I was sitting with one of my favorite people, my piano teacher from high school.


The year was not going well. The rigors of a music major, three part-time jobs, my own deep well of insecurity, and too many nights of too little sleep, had led me into a very dark place.


At the time I hated that the world outside was so beautiful and that I was unable to enjoy it or even to appreciate it. I was living behind the invisible wall of an anxious depression, and I hated being so vulnerable to its attacks.

My teacher knew me well. She knew I had been behind this wall before. She knew that she couldn't "fix" me. She listened to me, she loved me, and she shared something that returns to me every fall.

As we sat there in her car behind the science building, leaves on the trees around us were partly colorful and partly still green. The reason leaves are green, she reminded me, is that they have chlorophyll in them. The chlorophyll is there only for as long as the leaves need it to get the tree through that summer season of its life. It is temporary.

When fall comes, the chlorophyll has served its purpose and is no longer needed. As it drains out of the leaves, only then do we see the leaves’ true colors. The vibrant reds, yellows, oranges, and even the cozy browns reveal the real leaf that has been forming over the past season as it interacted with sun, rain, wind—and, yes, with the chlorophyll, too.

“I like to think,” my teacher said, “that in heaven we will be like the autumn leaves. Our true colors, our real selves, will finally be revealed. All the things of earth that had to be a part this season of life won’t be part of us anymore. Only the truest part of us will remain.”

It wasn’t exactly a science lesson, so I’m sure the analogy breaks down at some points. But the message never has left me:

Someday His light will reveal the person He created me to be.

Not the one so colored by my current trials, temperament and troubles.

Someday I will see who I was meant to be.

About fifteen years later, I sat on another campus, this time in a theology classroom, and listened as another teacher painted a picture of hope.

As he put it, when the new heaven and new earth are revealed, we will no longer need the blood, food, water, air and whatever else we depend on for earthly life. We will be completely sustained by the Spirit of God.

God will be not only the light that shines on us, but the food that nourishes us, the water that we drink, the very stuff of which we are made. Somehow, He will completely fill us and at the same time make us completely the individual people He created us to be.

Of course the truth is that He is already doing the work, just as the leaves grow and produce sugars and whatever else they do all summer long. We just can’t always see them, filled with “chlorophyll” as we are.

But someday we will see who we were meant to be.

A few weeks ago as my husband and I drove down country roads in the Ozark mountains, stunned by the dazzling glory of light and leaves, I wondered how anything could be more beautiful.

If God can turn an earthly forest into such a display of His glory, how glorious will it be when He fills our very selves with Himself? And lets us see our own and each others’ true colors?

Because then we will see Him as He is.

And because He Is Who He Is, we will--at last!--be who we are.

Death Be Not Proud

Death, be not proud though the whole world fear you:

Mighty and dreadful you may seem.

But, death, be not proud, for your pride has failed you.

You will not kill me.

Though you may dwell in plague and poison,

You're a slave to fate and desperate men.

So, death, if your sleep be the gates to Heaven,

Why your confidence,

When you will be no more?

You will be no more.

Even death will die,

Even death will die.

Death, be not proud.

Death, be not proud.

Death, be not proud.

'Cause even death will die.

It's a beautiful rendition of John Donne's poem by Audrey Assad, and as I listened to it today while driving, I thought of the beloved one who died today three years ago.

Since her death, I've written about her on this blog, here and here.

Oh, and here.

And then one more here. 

She was my piano teacher, and she was so much more.

I wrote about her before her death, too, this post about autumn leaves and resurrection.

I had no idea then how much more those ideas of hers would come to mean,

more than they did my freshman year of college,

more than they did when I wrote about them years later.

Because she--who loved autumn so much and saw in it not only the ends of things

but also the beginnings of things,

an encounter with life at a new perspective,

at a new level of  meaning, of intensity--

she died in autumn.

So this morning I took a walk in the park and thought about her,

and this afternoon I took some pictures with the sun shining through the autumn leaves.

I remembered her (I'll never forget her; she's in my music, in my mind, in my heart,

in the way I hold my hands, in the Bible verses I read, in the words I give to my own students)

and I listened to this song.

Even death will die.

Even death will die.

Death's sleep is the gate to Heaven.

And there, or then, however we should speak of that existence--

"I like to think," my teacher said, "that in heaven we will be like the autumn leaves. Our true colors,

our real selves, will finally be revealed. All the things of earth that had to be a part of this season of lie won't be part of us anymore. Only the truest part of us will remain."

I think everyone who knew her knew they were seeing her truest parts.

Her kindness, her graciousness, her honesty, her compassion.

Her sense of humor, her hearty laugh.

Her love for God and love for others.

And remembering her,

we are helped to let go of unneeded parts of ourselves

so that our truest parts can be revealed,

little by little, day by day.

I know it's true for myself, and I see the things people are writing

on Facebook today.

Her light shone in many lives.

And for her life, and for her love, today I give thanks.

And this wasn't a planned-out decision--it just happened this way--

but it just hit me that her degree was in organ, not piano,

and tonight we had an organist over for dinner.

The first time we've ever had this friend over.

What a lovely gift, a way of connectiong with her

without even intending to.

Life is a funny and wonderful bunch of connections.

So in a minute, I'll go play her music,

the music she told me I just had to get and learn to play,

those last couple of years when she was delving into jazz. . .

because she never, never, never gave up.

When you believe that even death will die,

you never give up.

Good night.

Flying Dreams

In fifth grade I had a dream of flying over the playground at school. I've never forgotten it, but I had no more dreams of flying until about two weeks before going to Lookout Mountain.

Interpretations about flying dreams abound, but the main issue for me was that dreaming of flying was so lovely, such a beautiful and free feeling, I wondered if hang gliding might not be a disappointment after the dream flight.

I'm happy to report that my first experience with hang gliding, despite the lack of visual romance alluded to in the earlier post, did not let me down.

Not only that: it outdid my dreams.

The plane took us up to an altitude of 4,000 feet. Up until this time the plane's motor was a constant companion, and of course we were moving pretty quickly, so it felt fast and fairly bumpy. Then Eric said, "I'm going to release us from the plane now. It's going to feel like a big bump."

And it did, and my tummy felt much the way you feel when a fast elevator stops or takes off.

(Here you can see the rope that held us, about to be released.)

But then . . . but then . . . it was just us and the wind.

It was breathtakingly beautiful. I remember saying, "Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness." And "Beautiful. This is beautiful. This is just beautiful."

It was a clear day, and we could see so far in every direction. Not like being in a airplane at all, really, because then you can only see out windows.

It was amazing. It was beautiful.

And so quiet. The peacefulness struck me as much as the beauty.

I would have been happy to just hang there and say nothing (except I couldn't stop saying "this is beautiful....")

But this was supposed to be in part a lesson, not just a dream fulfilled.

So, at some point Eric let me turn the glider left and right and showed me how he slowed it down and made it go faster. I was struck by two things: how relatively simple it was to maneuver the glider, and how much I need to get in better shape. Because even though it's simple, it does take strength.

He pointed out Cloud Canyon State Park, and we wondered at a large green forest atop a plateau in the midst of all the autumn leaves. The leaves, of course, were a big part of why I kept saying "beautiful." They were at their autumn peak, and when you can see them for miles and miles around, the intensity of the color is almost overwhelming.

It was fascinating, too, to have seen them quite close as we were leaving the ground; and then to see the shapes and colors merge into a sort of impressionist painting as we were pulled higher and higher; and then as we began gliding down, to see them take shape again until we could point out individual trees to one another.

I remember asking Eric how long he had been gliding. Six years. What did he do before that? “I was in graduate school for an MBA.” How did he wind up doing this? “I just came up here one time and did it, and after that I was hooked.” After a moment of looking around at the beauty, he added, “I think I made the right decision.”

I remember showing Eric a brilliant red tree, probably a maple, growing in front of a house. And thinking how strange it was to have this view from this perspective. To see these people’s tree in a way that they may have never seen it themselves.

Eric would occasionally have me turn the glider. And sometimes he had me do other things. I always thought it had to do with the gliding lessons, but sometimes it turned out he was just wanting a pose for a photo.

Eventually we were back in the area of the flight park. Eric asked if I wanted to land the glider. I still don’t know if he was serious or not, but I said I thought it would be fine for him to land us! Then he asked how about if we first flew by the launch ramp to “say hello.” I said that was fine with me.

Well, “saying hello” to him meant swooping down over the group of folks gathered at the ramp, so close that we could see each individual face. I’m sure we could have heard their greetings if I had not been screaming. (I learned the following day from a man who was on the ramp at the time that we were going about 50 mph. No wonder it felt so fast!)

Happily I felt the peace and quiet resume as we glided into landing position in the remaining 1300 feet we had to go. I think in a way that was the most amazing part, being so close to the ground, and yet moving above it. I can’t find anything to compare it to.

Inch by inch we came closer to the ground until there was a very small bump and our wheels touched down, rolling to a stop. It took a moment to be unhooked and un-velcroed from the contraption I was in. And then walking was something else! Kind of like trying to walk after you’ve skated for a long time.

Within minutes, once I got my legs back, my main thought was that it already seemed like a dream. Being down on the ground, it was hard to believe that I really had been up there. It was such a very different perspective and experience, where different thoughts and feelings were possible. Much like a dream.

Except that it was real.