Fall Transitions

Fall season quiets me down a bit. There’s something about the slowly falling leaves, the canning and preserving of summer’s abundance and the ordinariness of school children playing on the nearby playground that says, “Something has ended and something is about to begin.” I guess fall is transition-time.

Transition-time has its own rhythm. Mostly it moves me out of the ordinary, predictable part of life into a changed landscape of, “If I’m not where I was, and I’m not sure exactly what’s ahead, where am I really?” Is it an invitation to peer under the surface of my life and ask myself again what really matters and what’s part of the unimportant? I know for sure it’s a sacred time of waiting for clues to surface that will help me create my life path while I’m walking it.

So now I’m trying to surround myself with wise ones, especially children and elderly. Their honesty is both refreshing and awakening. I love the amazement in the voice of a local child as she points out yet another cloud-creature seen floating in the sky. Equally awakening is the comment that came from one of our elderly Sisters who hadn’t spoken many words in recent years. When asked by two young Sisters what she’d like to tell them, she simply says, “Keep loving.” Five years later the words continue to sustain these Sisters and give richness to their life path.

The listening and the speaking both give new dimensions to life. Sometimes we are shocked at how the words falling out of our mouths are really meant as food for our own being. Shared words have a way of knitting lives together and creating a shared home. Maybe in the long run, listening is what really gives meaning to our transition-time and provides a nurturing that can’t be received any other way. As Rachel Naomi Remen, author of Kitchen Table Wisdom says, “Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within another person.” And perhaps within ourselves as well.