Flameout

I walked out the front door on a very gray day.  Pulling my eye full into the lower center of the pear tree was a lone leaf among the dark greens and mauves and burgundies, a lone leaf that seemed to light up the world.  I stepped closer and observed that this leaf and all its companions are accompanied by hundreds of little pears. The tree at its most beautiful.  The tree just before its bare branches present themselves to winter's onslaught.

I thought how like this lovely tree are the lives of some people I have known.  Like the tree, they flourished in the springtime of their youth, put forth leaves, and flowers, and ultimately produced the fruit, the seeds within a promise of future life.  Then as they aged, their work finished, an inner glow emanated from them, radiating sunlight and cheer in the environs where they had thrived.  And they know, and we all know, that they will soon fall even as the leaves fall.

Imagine, if you will, a world in which everyone developed such beauty, a world in which our demise would indeed be our finest hour!

Brighten the corner where you are!

While the glory of young men is their strength,

    the splendor of older people is their silver hair.

 --Proverbs 20:29 (Names of God Bible)