Fall, A Time For Things To Die

Fall: A Time For Things To Die That Need To Die

I don’t know if I have a favorite season but if pressured into making a decision I think Fall would be it.

I like the colors, the coolness, the fires at night and the threat of Winter just around the corner.

On this, the first day of Fall, Kathy, our friend Karen Bauer, went for a hike in the Spokane Mountains near Winston, Montana.

Kathy and Karen are lighter and faster so I stayed at the rear, just far enough to analyze an idea God recently laid on me.

It’s a personal dream, too personal for public consumption but it has to do with allowing some things in my life to die, just like the flowers and the leaves do this time of year. But it’s not just about dying, it’s a picture of how dying allows for new growth after one season (winter) passes into another (Spring).

As we climbed the peaks of the Spokane Mountains you see the remains of what looks like a forest. Dead tree’s stand as a testament to what was but is no more. It’s also a picture of my life. Over the 64 years I’ve lived on this earth lots has had to die and if looked at at face value might appear ravaged and ransacked. But go deeper and the debris is a reminder of the work done to find who I really am.

I think some people think and act like when you get into your 60’s there’s less introspection, you know, as if you’ve made it. Perhaps that’s true for some but it doesn’t work that way for me in fact the intensity with which I choose to grow (get there) increases.

I am not dead and until I am I want to continue to remove the dross from the refining process as God reveals the gold in my life.

I recently wrote about a podcast on living in the moment that really hit me.

I think this “leaving things behind” and “living in the moment” are all connected.

In this personal dream from my Father, a younger me and me today look into each others faces.

But it is not the older with the instructions….it is the 10 year old me asking most of the questions.

As I march up the hill concerns and problems begin to fall away as I answer “little Ricky’s” questions, one by one.

In nature, many plants and tree’s are the most beautiful, just before they shed growth from the past season.

Tree’s don’t hang on to last years leaves they let them fall to the ground to provide nutrition for new growth that will come in the Spring.

They don’t fight the process they welcome it.

The child within is asking some tough questions. With each answer another leaf falls to the ground, lightening my load, providing answers, giving me peace.

I can choose to ignore the painful queries or I can dive in to see what’s on the other side.

The world teaches us we are owed a good life.

It lies to us about the joy of comfort and having things when true happiness, I think, is found in the deep waters of discomfort.

No one learns to swim well when confined to the shallow end of the pool.

Let me leave you with this one nugget from “Little Ricky’s” questions: “Why do you try to run away from me when I did so much to protect you when we were young?”

In the answer was/is the key to a prison I created, not him.

Man, I love the Fall.

And I love my God who is always showing me obstacles that stand in the way of our relationship.

Yes, it is time for some things to die.