Walking outside in the monastery yard looking for some inspiration, I opened the camera app on my phone. When I get into “photographer mode,” the world around me looks different. I become more sensitive to the angles of light, the intensity of shadows, the brightness of colors, and irregularity of shapes. It is like listening to the world with my eyes instead of my ears. Walking around with this level of awareness is often healing in itself, even if I never take a picture, because it tunes me in to the invisible presence of God in the world all around speaking in an inaudible language directly to my heart.
I trekked across the still green grass in the direction of the yellowing gingko trees with their carpet of yellow beneath. Glancing upward I determined that the sun’s location was not suitable for capturing the rich golden glow of the fan-shaped leaves. I gazed across the expanse of the front yard of the monastery from this uncommon point of view. The long dry spell during late summer and early autumn has caused most of the leaves to fall sooner than usual. The vast array of brilliant autumn colors would pass us by this year. The carpet of fallen pine needles and oak leaves crunched beneath my feet as I continued my afternoon search.
As I reached the ruins of the old tennis courts, a towering pecan tree came into view. Located at the end of a row like a military leader in front of a line of soldiers, it was easy to see that every branch was completely bare except for a few leaves clinging to a thin limb low on the tree’s trunk. The canopies of the other pecan trees were not as empty. Could it be dying? Could it have taken the brunt of a strong southerly storm wind, sacrificing itself for the others?
Turning to my left, I faced a relatively young maple tree near the exit drive. Earlier in the week it sported an abundance of orange foliage from top to bottom. Now, however, only a quarter of those leaves were remaining near the bottom. I walked over and stood among the lower branches of the maple. Again, I turned my eyes to the heavens. Brilliant colors and shapes were formed by the bright, angled sunlight shining through the leaves. Nature’s version of stained-glass windows proclaiming the glory of God. As anticipated, my heart leapt with joy and gratitude for God’s wonders. Thank you, God, for this precious gift.
When I lifted my phone to take some pictures of the glowing leaves, a breeze began to blow. The tree branches began to bob up and down. The leaves twisted and twirled. With all this movement, the camera app could not focus. I waited for stillness to return. The breeze would slacken but never long enough for the branches and leaves to settle in place. After a while it felt as if the leaves were laughing and dancing around. “Catch me if you can,” they communicated playfully. I chuckled to myself remembering how often this seems to happen. I replied, “Ok, God, you’ve had your laugh. You can stop that now.” Alas, the breeze kept blowing. The branches kept bobbing. The leaves kept dangling and dancing about to their own silent rhythm. This would be a lesson in patience and humility, an invitation to set aside my own agenda so that a will other than mine could take over.
The lesson I often get from nature is that I spend too much of my time and energy taking life too seriously, weighted down by the enormity of various responsibilities. When I first encountered the book Mister God, This Is Anna many years ago, I was introduced to a way of seeking and finding God that falls outside of the scripted norms of formal religion. Anna once described church like “Keep off the Grass” signs, meaning that “you can’t get at the best bits.” Sometimes the upside-down perspective is what is needed to see truths that our usual way of thinking or perceiving will never accomplish. God invites us beyond the comforts of the familiar and the expected so that our souls might rejoice and giggle and breathe freely in a love that know no boundaries.
By Sister Therese Haydel, OSB