Just this one last tree post for the season, I promise.

A few days ago, as I was standing absent-mindedly looking out a front window, I realized, with surprise, that I was gazing at a vision of shimmering gold.  At first  I thought it was my imagination, or a shift in my attitude.   Maybe a trick of the bright light?  But it’s not.  Even when my mind-set is less than sunny, and the day is, as well, it’s apparent that the leaves of our craggy silver maples have clearly turned yellow-gold.  Until now, every fall in the thirteen years we’ve lived in our house, I’ve been a little disappointed in our maples’ lack of leaf color.  I’ve always said that they don’t really change color; their silvery green fades a bit and they fall.  Once on the ground, they crinkle up and turn  light brown.   That’s the way I remember it, at least.

It makes me wonder.  Is this autumn really so different?  It does seem that the colors have been especially vibrant.  As a friend from church put it, “God has used a gloriously bright paintbrush this year.”  She has seen many a change of season; she’s ninety-nine, and still going strong.

Or was there a golden transformation, right in my front yard, in some years past, and I completely missed it?  Because I didn’t expect it, I didn’t notice when it appeared? Is it akin to overlooking a new hair style or recently grown beard of an old friend because we’re so familiar with a face that we stop seeing it?  I don’t know.  I hope I haven’t missed this golden spectacle before.  But one thing is certain:  I will appreciate it now, while it lasts, and I won’t forget to look for it this time next year.    

My friend is right:  God’s skills as a painter have been
everywhere in evidence this fall.