If we make ourselves small and still—then the turning of the seasons can be a turning of our souls.  

The pageantry of summer has drawn to a close, the lilting melody whispering away into the dreamlike hush of these dwindling days.  Contrasted with summer’s smiling skies, fall is an austere season.  The nights, nipped by frost, stretch longer and darker.  The soft verdure of forest and field has been bronzed to scratchy stubble.  I wander the woods in autumn, boots crunching the crispy leaves, and I feel it—the mystery of the season, like an inexorable tide, irresistibly drawing the deep wells of our spirits closer to the surface.  Just as the earth lays aside the surfeit of summer, this is a time of stripping away, a time of peeling back the layers of our lives and unflinchingly considering what’s underneath.  And there’s no better symbol of this than the most famous aspect of fall, the one that is quite possibly the most synonymous with the season—the leafless trees.

All summer, the trees were robed in the regalia of the growing season—leaves that poured pools of shade in the hot afternoons and rustled with the breeze in the gentle evenings.  But now, the trees stand bereft.  And without the leaves to cover imperfections, the health of the hardwoods is revealed.  Some trees have nothing to fear from this; these are the ones with robust trunks and limbs that seem to hold up the sky.  But for others, their summer leaves were concealing some darker secrets.  Examining these trees, I’ve been surprised by gaping holes where the trunk was rotting from the inside out, the broken teeth of branches that snapped in summer storms, and the ominous fungus that creeps along the limbs from which the life is leaking.    

For good or bad, that which could be camouflaged by summer foliage is now stunningly revealed.  It’s startling to roam among the denuded tress and see them as they are.  But when I peer at the stark branches and caress the silvery trunks, I’m not just thinking about my trees.  I’m thinking about myself.  What’s beneath the “leaves” of my life?  If all my defenses were down, what would be revealed?  

As the trees take cover in their foliage, so we huddle within our own “leaves”—the strategies we use to hide what’s underneath.  And I’m not only referring to the deep, cavernous secrets that can fester in the darkest cracks of our hearts; I’m also reminded of the day-to-day ones, the ones that are small but so serious:  our fears, our doubts, our emotions, our flaws, our failures.  Regardless, we all have parts of our souls that we desire to keep from the eyes of others.  And that’s where we begin to reach for the “leaves.”

Since the whole point is to protect the image we project, perhaps it’s not surprising that most “leaves” look quite innocuous, even virtuous, on the surface.  Maybe we always agree to help others, or we work with diligence and persistence, or we’re renowned for our tasteful attire, or we busy ourselves with church activities.  The trouble arises not in the activity but in the impetus.  Always accommodating the requests of others isn’t positive if it’s done to conceal our insecurity.  A strong work ethic can be a downfall if work is a substitute for purpose.  Some may dress nicely to hide their lack of confidence, and some fill their days with religious duties as an attempt to earn favor with God.  If it stems from a place of enhancing our image, trying to manufacture inner peace, or compensating for perceived weakness, then anything in our lives can mirror the function of the leaves on the trees—protecting the secrets of our fragile hearts and preventing others from seeing what lies underneath the smooth surface we assume. 

This tendency is nothing new; it’s been part of the human habit since the beginning.  As the leaves tumble downward around me, I think about where it all began—the Garden of Eden, where evil first infected the innocence and pierced the peace of the “very good.”  It was autumn, some say, when the world fell, when the serpent lied and the woman ate and the man blamed and the curse came.  And I think about Adam and Eve, the first to cower and cover—using leaves in a very literal sense.  “So when the woman…took of [the] fruit and ate…she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.  But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’  And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Genesis 3:6-7, 9 ESV).

“I was afraid because I was naked.”  Those words still resonate with us.  When our aspirations and hopes are laid bare, we’re vulnerable.  When our emotions are revealed to others, we’re anxious.  And when our shortcomings are displayed, we’re terrified.  Yes, nothing much has changed since the Garden.  We are still afraid when we find our inner selves naked.  

And our natural response is to hide.  So we work hard to pull our leaves around us, to cover the bareness of our branches.  We grasp at the brightest and best to wrap around our souls.  And we find a sad success in our efforts.  We can fine-tune the image we project to the world.  We can conceal our private fears from our friends.  Some of us might even fool ourselves.  

But there’s a problem.

The problem is that when autumn comes, those feeble leaves we’ve trusted will shrivel and fall, leaving us empty and exposed.  Hiding then is not merely difficult; it’s impossible.  And mark my words—with the certainty of the seasons, autumn invades every human life.

Sometimes autumn rides in on a blast of bad news.  Sometimes it falls with the slow gray rain of resentment or cracks with the sudden chill of frozen dreams.  The good health crumbles.  The trust is betrayed.  The resources run dry.  The hope is deferred.  The opportunity is lost.  

In the summer sun, anyone can project an image of life and light.  When conditions are favorable, it’s not hard to portray verdant victory.  But when the autumn wind keens around the corners of our souls, it’s a whole different story.  I know that when November comes for me, when my leaves are falling fast, then I see myself with a clarity that was lost in the summer haze.  The foggy conception I held of my own niceness and good behavior is blown away.  I become acutely aware of the rottenness in my branches, the crookedness in my trunk.  

And I think maybe that’s part of what makes trials so difficult.  We not only must contend with the circumstances that are so devastating; we also must face the fact that we ourselves are not nearly as spiritual as we believed.  When the leaves are gone, so are our airbrushed notions of our own religiosity.  Standing barren and bereft, we are in the grueling grip of something that comes easily to no human—honesty.  

So what do we do?  When we’re in the middle of a whirling wind that is blowing our leaves in every direction?  When we have nothing left to cover ourselves?  When the secrets are exposed and the light is invading all the shadowed crevices?  What should be our response?

I think again about Adam and Even in the garden, cloaked in their fig leaves, and I find a ray of hope in the passage that I overlooked before:  “But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Genesis 3:9 ESV). 

Where are you?

Friend, I don’t know what your answer to that would be today.  I don’t know if you’re on the pathway of pain or the mountains of misery or roaming beside the streams of sadness.  But no matter where you find yourself today, this verse tells us one thing:  we have a God Who is looking for us.  We can hide nothing from the Lord Who can “search the heart and test the mind” (Jeremiah 17:10a ESV).  He sees behind our “leaves” with perfect clarity; He knows our secrets better than we could ourselves.  There is no shame or sorrow hidden from His gaze.  And yet His response is not the judgment or disgust we so often fear, but lavished love.  He never allows us to remain hidden.  Wherever we cower behind our “leaves,” in whatever broken Eden we inhabit, God still comes walking in the cool of the day, seeking our souls, holding out the gentle invitation to lay down our weapons and run into His embrace.  

So the first step is, counterintuitively, one of surrender.  We feel the frost of November without turning away.  We admit our frailty and resolve to leave no secret to fester unspoken.  We turn from the posturing and pretending, the glossing over and sugarcoating and covering up, that are so painfully prevalent in our culture.  We let go of the leaves and stand instead with transparent souls. 

And then when we have quit trying to hide, we can truly be found.  

The stately oaks along the perimeter of my yard are dropping their robes and laying bare their frames.  The leaves are spiraling earthward even now in the eternal dance of autumn.  And if they’re falling in your life too, perhaps this is not a threat to be faced or a calamity to be avoided.  Maybe it’s instead an opportunity—a chance to forsake our veneers of virtue, our facades of artificiality, and stand in authenticity before our God, our friends, and ourselves.  As Jesus reminded us, “The time is coming when everything that is covered up will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all” (Luke 12:2 NLT).  When we stand before the throne at the end of time, we’ll wear no leaves or lies—only the hard and holy truth.    How else can we be ready for that day, and make an impact in our own, than to live in the light today?  

Did you enjoy this post? What are some steps you can take to live in the light today? Let me know in the comments!

And now, BIG NEWS!!! I’m so excited to have been interviewed by the Sentinel-Record newspaper about my book, A Year in the Woods!!! It was so much fun and such an honor to share more about the writing of this book, the inspiration behind my nature focus, and the glory of God as revealed in His Word and His world. In addition to the print article, the newspaper also released a short video combining quotes from my interview with nature videography. I’d love for you to watch it and let me know what you think!