True Autumn

He woke up tired of life. Not life in general but life specific, as in the way he was living it. Yes, that’s much closer to the truth: He woke up tired of his life. He’d reinvented himself about fifteen years ago, surprised everyone including God. It was a bloom for the better, he called it his late spring liberation.

But now he was in his Indian summer, true autumn would set in soon. He sensed this next season would not be one of putting on but falling away, like the leaves. Not a manufactured stripping a la flagellation, but natural, prompted only by the wind’s ways. The feeling was impossible to shake, that his absolute survival depended on this change. He simply could not continue on with the way things were. If he did he might uncle to despair, and that would be more than he could bear. That would be to admit a great defeat. That would be to give up on life, to trample underfoot the gift.

 
 

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9 Comments

  1. Larry Shallenberger on March 5, 2014 at 1:01 pm

    Son of a…

  2. patiricia on March 5, 2014 at 1:33 pm

    And so I pray against the trampling… the trampler.
    For it is not of God. Pruning, yes. Plowing under, yes.
    But guard us from the trampling, oh Lord.

  3. juliea on March 5, 2014 at 1:55 pm

    Oh to finish well. To allow God to raise up one’s life to be as He desires. Let the only falling away cause us to be caught by Him and carried on that soft whisper of wind into His true calling on our life.

  4. Jewels on March 5, 2014 at 3:08 pm

    I got nothing except a contented sigh, and a sense of gratitude for having read this. Stay gold.

  5. Susan Irene Fox on March 5, 2014 at 4:42 pm

    And to everything there is a season. Bless you, John.

  6. The Ducklows on March 5, 2014 at 5:35 pm

    May I repost this one? I would put it on my website and Carey’s and source yours. And I want to know who it is. Perhaps you don’t wish to say. It sounds like so many I know.

    Paddy Ducklow

    TheDucklows.ca Paddy@TheDucklows.ca 604-921-9542 Book an Appointment

    >

  7. Annie B on March 5, 2014 at 5:59 pm

    Painful and good.

  8. genesmith12 on March 5, 2014 at 10:54 pm

    Wowzer! I’m so there right now. Thanks for putting words to what many of us are going through John.

  9. pastordt on March 5, 2014 at 11:25 pm

    So. . . welcome to where I live these days, my friend. Autumn, it is – gettin’ colder by the day, too. (What do you call this form, John? I’m a poetry-dummy – I love it, I just don’t always get the forms. . . )

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