The Blessings of Letting Go

I’m posting this from the mountains of North Carolina just after midnight. Yesterday was cold and misty, so my friend and I stayed in most of the day and enjoyed a fire. Right now, the temperature is in the upper 20s and a little snow has fallen. Since I’m on vacation and will be seeing my grand daughter this weekend, I’m trying to rest up as much as I can. So instead of a regular post, I’m sharing my October Newsletter below.

Will check back in later. 🙂

October Newsletter

I’ve been wondering about fall leaves. How can something that appears to be dying be so beautiful? Maybe because they are beautiful, and it’s not so much about dying as it is letting go to make room for something better.

This article explains how shorter days and cooler nights signal leaf-dropping trees to line up “abscission” (scissor) cells in just the right place to release their leaves. This letting go saves the trees energy and protects them from freezing.

In Trust the Timing, A Memoir of Finding Love Again, I learned to let go of burdensome relationships and resentments to make room for love. Letting go is rarely an easy process for me. Like I wrote in chapter 21, a friend once told me that “everything she ever let go of had claw marks on it.” I thought she was joking. Now, I understand.

The benefits of letting go do pay off in time.

When we let go of burdens, we make room for blessings.

 We let go of resentment to make room for love.
We let go of worry to make room for hope.
We let go of doubt to make room for joy.

Lately, I’ve been practicing letting go with my adult children’s lives and my parents’ possessions. The tasks are not easy. Okay, they are downright hard, and sometimes, I’m not that good at it. The logistical challenges make up the tip of the iceberg while the emotional challenges weigh heavy beneath the surface. But I’m doing the work because my grown children need to make their own decisions, and my parents don’t need material possessions in heaven. It helps to remember this message:

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28 – 30

My children will learn as I did, (or rather do, since I’m learning all the time) and some day, someone else will be living in my parent’s house, just like new blossoms and leaves will grow on the trees when spring returns. In the meantime, deer have found comfort in the stillness of my parents’ backyard and make their beds in the fallen leaves.

What do you want to let go of?
What blessings might you make room for?

One-Liner Wednesday: Trust

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

…

 

Golden leaves let go

Leaving slender branches bare.

We know spring will come.

 

One-Liner Wednesday is brought to you by, Linda G. Hill. For more one-liners, visit:

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Wake Up Call

Summer wanes…

Rustling leaves whisper:

Change is coming…

Time to take inventory.

What do I need?

What’s most important?

What dreams can I grab by the collar,

And haul up from the depths,

To save the rest of my life?

It’s late in the game.

There’s still time left,

But the clock is ticking.

What do we need?

What’s most important?

What dreams can we weave together

In a giant safety net

To save our only planet?

Love Letters from a Sycamore Tree

The sycamore that grows in my backyard, near the house, has been leaning (away from the house) ever since a major hurricane years ago. I think it was Bertha in 1996. With each hurricane since, I go outside and give the tree a hug before things get dicey. “Hang in there,” I murmur. I think it was during Floyd in ’99 that I watched the roots heave upward a few inches with each powerful gust tugging at the branches. “Hold on,” I whispered from the back door.

The sycamore held on through the storms, through my divorce and through the raising of two teenagers. Now, a smaller trunk grows from the base of mother sycamore, leaning in the opposite direction, providing balance. The mother tree seems to be leaning less, like  maybe at a 5 degree angle instead of 20 degrees.

Some people would have cut this tree down as soon as the lean was discovered.

But not this tree hugger.

Each year the leaning tree sheds it’s bark as sycamores are known to do. This past summer, I noticed natural heart shaped holes in bark offerings. Maybe they were there before, and I just didn’t notice. I don’t know. Life is what you make it, and I like to think that maybe my old friend sent me summer valentines.

    

The wide leaves are just starting to turn brown. Soon they will begin to fall.

Trees give us shade in the summer as their leaves soak up the sun’s energy.  If you have as many trees in your yard as I do, you can save a lot of money on air conditioning.

As the weather cools, some trees let go of their leaves, letting the sun shine through to warm us in winter.

Is it a coincidence that trees benefit us this way?  Are we just lucky? Or are we blessed?

Then there’s the whole oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange thing.  Trees make the stuff we need to breathe in, and we breath out the stuff they need.

Do you ever stop and think about how amazing and wonderful this planet is?

This poem is from Earth Prayers 1991, Edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon:

Few things that grow here poison us.

Most of the animals are small.

Those big enough to kill, do it in a way

Easy to understand, easy to defend against.

The air here is just what the blood needs.

We don’t use helmets or special suits.

The star here doesn’t burn you if you

Stay outside as much as you should.

The worst of our winters is bearable.

Water, both salt and sweet, is everywhere.

The things that live in it are easily gathered.

Mostly, you can eat them raw with safety and pleasure.

Yesterday, my wife and I brought back

Shells, driftwood, stones and other curiosities

Found on the beach of the immense

Fresh-water Sea we live by.

She was all excited by a slender white stone which

“Exactly fits the hand.”

I couldn’t share her wonder.

Here, almost everything does.

                                  Lew Welch

Whether it’s luck, or the grand design of a generous Creator, we need to be more thankful for our planet, and particularly thankful for trees. If a tree’s growing in an inconvenient place, try to move it while it’s still small. Put small seedlings in  pots and give them away. Give them a chance.

What have you learned from trees or from nature?