The Season of Rest

We are now about three or four weeks into the season of winter.
Work schedules being what they are, I find myself sticking pretty much close to home these wintry days. The notion of making a long trek across unknown wilds will have to remain a figment of my imagination.
My backyard is another story.
One only has to slow down, stop, and get down low to the ground.
It is truly amazing what can be found if one will only look.
Leaves fell by the truckload all through autumn. Many people opt to rake up all these leaves and put them at curbside for pick-up by local municipal street departments.
I wasn’t one of them.

Preferring to let the leaves lie, I am now rewarded for my reluctance to siphon off my yard’s biomass in the interest of neatness.
The ecological recycling loop is complete…leaves let lie will break down and feed the earth.  Not only that…they are a thing of beauty this winter season.
While many complain about the weather, I am having fun being a little bit contrarian.
I am enjoying the feeling of hibernation that winter brings about…I am considering this season’s invitation to slow down and take a breather. As all nature seems to go dormant, I too feel the pull of the slowdown.
Snow muffles sounds. Trees without foliage take on stark outlines. Year-round resident birds stand out against the bare branches, making identification that much easier. The stars at night seem that much clearer and brighter. All is brought into sharp focus, even as the bitter cold of a week and a half ago seemed to pierce the thickest coat, hat, gloves, and scarf.
Why do we want to escape the season that we’re in? Why is summer desired when we are in the middle of winter, or winter missed during the blazing heat of summer? Why are only so-called optimal weather conditions the only ones we like?
The remedy for this deficit, I believe, can be found in something so simple as leaves on the ground…they show us the simple yet profound reality of the cycle of life and death and life again…and our place within that cycle. We realize that we are a part of the Creation and not its Source.
And yet even when we observe the death of leaves, or other creatures, or even ourselves, something in our hearts cries for meaning…is this Creation that we see all that exists? Or is there more?
That the Creation is made…that Someone made it…testifies to Eternity. And how, then, unless we ourselves were destined for Eternity, would we even long for something more? This longing for meaning and an existence beyond this life itself testifies to the reality of that life.
And so, I ponder leaves. And the life of the world to come.