Denise
December 1988
St. John Catholic Church newsletter
It seems to me that the leaves were particularly beautiful this year, a glorious burst of bright colors. I thought, how typical of our surprising God that he gives to the trees their greatest beauty and radiance right before they die for the winter. It usually seems to me that nature reveals God’s plan, but this is an apparent contradiction. For we humans do not grow most beautiful before our death. In fact, most people die after illness or great age has left them wrinkled, bent and worn by the ravages of disease. At least that is what the human eye sees. I wonder what God sees with His infinite eyes. Does he see the elderly and the ill as gorgeous in their simplicity, glorious in their closeness to the essence of life, splendid in their trusting surrender to His plan for ultimate resurrection in the spring of eternity? I wonder if He sees the dying AIDS patient or the person lying motionless in a nursing home bed at the peak of their unique coloration and individualism as they wait for His call to come home. I wonder if that is what He is telling us with His autumn gift.