October 10, 2009 Colors of life - autumn 2009


Once again leaves are falling now. Nature dresses with wonderful autumn colors and shades. The corn leaves become dry and brown, the remaining flowers sadly hang their heads. The wind plays with the leaves and tells us about the ups and downs of life, about light and shadow, about joy and sorrow. Now the harvest is brought in. And it is time to think of the harvest of life. Of the bright colors of summer and experiences, of the colors of autumn and the rather contemplative days of life, of the colors of the cold seasons, its sadness and drabness, ice age. Thus our life is permanently bound to nature. For nature and its colors are the mirror and at the same time symbol of our life. Pain? Approval? Autumn reminds us that we are continuously growing old. Even we humans more and more lean towards the ground while growing older, we become more fragile, change our facial color and structure of our body. The wind plays with the days of our life and he bends us. Is that painful? Do you agree? No, we do not want to get the blues. But we have to practice aging, we have to be prepared to grow older. Be prepared to change colors and get wrinkles in the face and to accept a stooped body. Be prepared to accept sinking strength and getting a plaything of the wind. Be prepared to face reality of autumn. It is the exercise of letting go like the tree shakes off its leaves. But how hard can it be to let go of your strength, your health, your successes. Farewell, you perfect crown of my tree. Farewell, my strength, my health, farewell all my successes. Well then? Does autumn make way for something else? Isn't it a matter of fact and we can read that in the gospel that we die and our seeds fall to the ground and are the origin for something new? And the good seeds bring new life ... Autumn makes way for silence. Autumn wind is a quiet song. The colors of autumn paint another picture in our soul, a deep one, a quiet picture. Autumn is the merciful time to once again listen to Gods voice, to understand his signals, to breathe in his mysterious liveliness from exactly this deep silence. Autumn has fascinating colors. If thousands of sunflowers turn to the same direction and bow their heads and foreshadow farewell? Once I stood in the middle of such a field of sunflowers and the wind among their bowing heads spoke of farewell and evening mood. And the wind hummed: Let go, and even I bowed my head and answered in time with the wind: Yes, let go. Why? So that there will be something new. You can also let go of prayers Since my heart attack even I have let go of the superb prayers. You even can let go of prayers. This means the praying becomes more and more easy and modest. And the colors of your prayer change and the melody of your autumn prayer becomes more and more quiet and only hums. A complete Lord's Prayer turns into a "Thy will be done". Autumn is reason for letting go, "your kingdom come", but even for looking back. We hopefully have reason for looking back in thankfulness to summer and spring, to the youth and the vigorous years of our life. Hopefully, there is enough reason to be thankful for the chances of your life. Hopefully, the autumn wind sings a song of harmony with what has become of you. Then I will be thankful for everything God has given to me, for the gifts of my soul, for the people I was allowed to meet. The abundance of colors in myself and in others. Autumn gives me a particular inspiration. Somehow it makes it easy for me to let go of something once more. Before falling to the ground the autumn leaves are especially colorful and magnificent. Wonderful colors. Sometimes I think, if I succeed in letting go of something in me and of me, if autumn even is in me, then my soul is the most wonderful range of colors existing. The my soul is so colored and the whole autumn life even is a new life. And the wind quietly carries away what we have let go of, what we have parted with: forever. Then there is room in me Whenever I succeed in letting go of something I feel maturity and abundance and superiority and hope and thankfulness and the mild light of autumn in me. And then there is ample room in me, to retreat into myself in winter, into my coat against the cold. I shield myself, I just let a little hole for breathing like I break one into the fishpond in my garden. Yes, of course even the ice wind has a melody. Then I wait for spring once more and for its wind with a new melody. But now shall the mild light of autumn shine upon me and you. A little time. There is nothing eternal in this world. Listen to the song of your wind and in the morning already greet the evening. Like the last summer has turned into this autumn. That is true letting go, then, Father, deliver us from all evil. I write you a salutation into the autumn wind. Like a leaf this wind shall carry it to your. Catch this leaf. Keep hold of it, if you can. Yours, Father Don Demidoff ICCC