The Harvest

When we were 18, we shared our dreams. Now that we are almost 50! we shared our lives. And I must say, it is much sweeter on this end of the deal.

I went to my High School Class 30th Reunion last night. I know, I know, hearing about someone else's reunion is about as exciting as listening to the seasons change...but I love to listen to the seasons change.

It was the simple paradox of listening to how much life had changed some, and looking at some who seemed, on the outside, not to have changed at all (doesn't happen.) I got all "Age does not wither" looking at some of the women I went to school with. It was gratifying to stop and talk and listen to the sound of lives going by as leaves eddy in a gentle, fall wind. We were all trees together in a forest, some bending and swaying, and some standing, leaves rustling, speaking of shoots and saplings of years past, and the storms they had witnessed and survived.

Talking of some who had been overtaken by this storm or that, and who could no longer come to the Gathering; young trees cut down in their prime. Some were seared with lightening strikes, and some had put on new bark, but we remained trees, all.

And truly, one day the Fire will come to clear the forest, and a new one will spring up in it's wake, for wood is born to burn and the clearing of the forest must come to us all.

But now, in this Fall, I can look back at Spring, and see how the light through the leaves has not really changed. There were flowers then, but no harvest. And surely the harvest is needful and necessary and right. And the hope of Spring and again, another harvest to sustain us through the Winter, is something decreed that we cannot change.