Made Like a Tree and Leaf

We are officially in October, and I’m noticing the leaves are just starting to change, giving the trees a velvety look. I love it when you can see green, yellow, orange, and red all on the same tree. Rustic and beautiful.

So in the creative writing class I teach, I had my students write about what it’s like to be a leaf. And since I won’t ask them to do anything I’m not willing to do, I spent those ten class minutes writing about what it’s like to be a leaf. Here’s the result…

How long have I been up here, you ask? Well all my life, of course! Or approximately since May 3, my birthday, as you call it. We call it “budday.” I started out as a bud, you know. Small, round, and a little pink. That’s how we all start out. Just buds. Then eventually we grow stems, and get bigger and wider until we’re all about the same size and same color—green! Some of us are darker or lighter, bigger or smaller, thinner or wider, but we’re all roughly the same, just slightly different here and there.

Anyways, I’ve been up here all my life. it has been quite a nice life. I just hang here, sway when the wind tells me to, and watch the birds pass by. We have a few regulars, and even some nests on our branches. They’re nice company to have around.

I always get excited, though, when a storm is coming in. We can all tell when it’s going to happen, because the wind swirls in a different way and everyone prepares for it. We turn over to hid our faces from what’s coming. We’re never sure if this will be “the big one” or if it will just blow through, so we turn our faces so our backs show, just in case…

So now I’m thinking about how we are a lot like leaves. We all start out the same way, and though we are each unique in our size and shape and color, we’re all basically the same. We hang around together, sway in the wind together, and ready for the coming storms together, whatever they may be.

When God created the trees and their leaves, I wonder if He meant to teach us of ourselves. I wonder if He meant to teach us that we’re all created uniquely but similarly…or that He’s given us each other for friendship and camaraderie…or that when He moves we are to move with Him.

I wonder.

[Image via Alper Orus/Flickr]