[Image:Hanging Leaves, 2013, JA Van Devender]
Location: Lower Gunpowder Falls, State Park, Vicinity of Jerusalem, MD
Psalm 90:12 (NKJV)
12 So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.
"Too soon old, too late smart" is one of those folksy sayings that's been around a while, which may be proof of its validity.
Seeing the few leaves that presented any brilliant color on my recent "mental health" excursion to the State Park, reminded me that leaves are most colorful just as they die. Maybe there is some kind of truth there.
What if life is intended to be its most beautiful at the very point where our physical presentation is decidely less so. Now that is not to say that there is no physical "beauty" in advanced stages of life, far from it. But it is the "beauty" of character that shines in the weathered brow of an old man or from the calm stability that shines out of an older lady's eyes, that warms our hearts. The days of virile abs and strikingly attractive feminity may be long past, but something else is now present and maybe, just perhaps, that latter "color" is even more to be appreciated than that of vigorous youth.
"Teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom" cries the Psalmist. Now, let me tell you, it takes some courage to pray that... and mean it. "Wisdom" comes with experience. Experience is what gives us a furrowed brow and creased eye lids. Every "experience" leaves its mark, whether visible or not. "Wisdom" is that which sees in those marks a coherency, a continuity of growth, an accumulation of understanding. The experiences are understood to "count" for something, ... for something in us and through us, such that our lives are valued by that perspective. This, I think, is "wisdom", and it is not learned from books though some books help.
"Wisdom" is not counter to passion... often it is the cause of it. But is does temper passion and place it in its proper harness. The great challenge of youth is to govern impulse and passion. Experience is the only possible cure and that is what is provided. One learns that "passion" provides the zeal and "understanding" the avenue for passion to be expressed. The "color" of life is then attained by the congruence of those two things... passion/zeal and understanding. The fall colors might be seen in that light.
Not every leaf achieves brilliance in the fall however. There are those which go directly from green to black, wither and die without adding to the show. It's usually some bug or disease of course, but it happens. The same can be said of some of us who grow older but apart from wisdom. The experiences are not linked in to a unity of growth... they remain, even to the end of their days, simply confused by where they are or what they have encountered. Life remains chaotic right up to the end. They never learned what it meant to "number" their days, to count each day as it is lived, to sum it up in reflection, to see its relation to what follows and, at some point, to see the hand of God in each and every one.
So... Lord... teach us to number our days... young and old alike. Alert us to the joy of life that accrues to living a "measured" life, where your hand is recognized and, even in tears, welcomed.
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