"Moments..................."

Sunday morning brought to me an act of nature never before witnessed. Nothing significant or out of the ordinary so far as in the fact that the event, itself, isn’t a yearly occurrence. It’s perfectly normal at this time of year for trees to shed their foliage. With the overnight drop in temperature taking us down to 27 degrees, however, the leaves on the magnolia in my front yard, still somewhat wet from the previous day’s drizzle, must have frozen in such state; and the sun, now rising over the hills to the east, was melting the only thing yet holding them to the branches. Watching from my kitchen window, I marveled as, not just one, here and there, floated to the ground, but indeed they fell like raindrops, in multitude, the light reflecting off their dampness and the whole picture like one out of a Disney cartoon. In the matter of a few short minutes, some ninety-five percent of the limbs were bare, a leaf here, another there, yet attached, surviving momentarily, but enough of a pile below for me to fill five huge bags after church. Glimpses of God in my life, likewise, have been temporary encounters wherein my eyes were suddenly opened and cleansing took place. If such events were almost always illuminating, occasions of realizing the warmth of His presence, it nonetheless remained afterwards that enough of “me” was left, humanity as it exists, to ensure the old man was going to need another “foot-washing” somewhere down the road. Someone spoke recently of “going back” twenty or thirty years, this recent resetting of our clocks having sparked such thought, no doubt, and I declined the possibility should it ever be there. Memories are enough for this old man. It’s easy there to lose all my ignorance along the way, recall the good things and laugh. Even if reliving it all, with the knowledge of where my actions and decision took me, would bring changes, who I am would still be who I am, humanity with lessons to learn, a stumble down the path. This, therefore, remains a journey for me and I’m more drawn to what yet lies before me, believing there is indeed something beyond the grave. Too much for me to conceive, but tugging at me in spite of the enigma, stepping beyond the veil somehow not feared…….