Among the trees

 It was in those days that he went onto the mountain to pray, and he spent the entire night in prayer to God. Then, when it was daylight, he summoned his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he designated as apostles. (Luke 6:12-13)

Yesterday, I shot my best photo waist high and straight down.

There were too many people, noisy people, on the main trails at Knoch Knolls, so I found little-walked paths, narrow and neglected, at times indiscernible from the floor of the forest surrounding them.

I fancy myself an adventurer, but that is a romantic illusion. These days my adventures are two-fold: First, finding forest trails few people walk on the edge of suburbia, and second, staring at this keyboard waiting for words that will wake the Love latent in my soul to satisfy my heart’s hunger for transcendence.

I go to the woods hoping to escape the unceasing noise of the world, including the sound of my own voice, the endless chatter of the mind trying to name everything as if to make it meaningful. Adam’s endless task grows more wearisome as I age and realize how little I have ever understood anything, despite the torrent of words that poured from my younger self as I attempted to reduce mystery into meaning and make sense of things.

Standing still, silent among the trees, seems a more authentic response to the indecipherable mystery of one’s existence.

Pushing deeper into the woods, the echoes of human presence faded until there was only the rattle of brittle leaves clinging to limbs and branches in the cool October breeze. Others surrendered to the season, falling like snowflakes, seesawing to-and-fro, slowly gliding to the soil beneath my boots where they will accomplish their final purpose of feeding the earth just as they have for countless millennia—and as they will, long after I am able to walk these trails, seeking my heart.

The least I can do is to stop and say, ‘thank you’ to the trees and the breeze, to the rustle of leaves and the kaleidoscope of color coating the ground, myriad maple leaves, millions and more, in yellow shades, golden hues and ruddy reds beyond any Crayola could ever produce.

Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I turned left and right, looking behind and before, to take a photo. It didn’t matter where I focused. A riot of color covered everything in an impressionist wash of wonder, maple leaves lapping over the dark toe of my boots as I shuffled. Holding the phone waist high, I shot straight down, one, two, three photos, then stopped, happy just to be there.

No words were needed. In the vast, yawning eons of time, creation and improbability, I was there, somehow chosen and appointed to witness this and bring witness to the wonder no tongue can tell, surely not mine.

One either believes that the cosmos and one’s surprising existence is the result of blind chance, signifying nothing. Or, one dares imagine that your life is chosen and purposeful, willed and wanted by a Great Mystery who desires your existence and longs for your presence.

And for this, I can only smile, believing my smile is a share in the much greater joy of the One who speaks of love in silent leaves, hoping we will notice.

Jesus prayed in silence on the mountain before choosing the 12 whom he would draw close and train to carry out his mission. I don’t know how the Loving Mystery spoke in his soul so that he knew who to choose. I don’t believe he heard an audible voice, any more than I heard a voice on this overcast Saturday afternoon.  

But I believe he communed heart-to-heart with the Great Love who smiled at me in the silence of Knoch Knolls. And I believe this Love filled him and opened his awareness of those who would welcome the joys and suffer the sorrows of being with him.

They were chosen to witness who Love is and what Love does, but then … so was I, among the trees.

David L. Miller