October 1, 2015 – From Sr. Toby Lardie

How quickly the summer has passed! Now we are into autumn, a time of many changes in the world around us. I love this time of the year, noticing how the air begins to get cooler, and the long daylight hours switch over to longer nights and shorter days. The colors begin to slowly start to change, and then it seems it speeds up until the world explodes in so many vibrant yellows, oranges and reds. One of the biggest changes, of course, is the leaves falling from their branches until the trees are quite bare. This annual event of falling leaves has been a curious thing for me. I noticed that only the leaves that have been alive will drop off the trees. Leaves that died over the summer will often stay on the tree all the way through the winter. But for those leaves that have been alive all summer, what makes them let go of the branch? Do they just lose their connectedness and simply fall? Are they “pushed” off when it is time? I like to think they “jump” in total surrender when the time is right. These outer changes are quite dramatic each fall. But do they echo the inner changes in each one of us? This season is an invitation for us to consider what has been happening in our own interior life over these past months and now. As we watch the harvest of the fields, what gifts of abundance do I recognize in the harvest of my own life? So many people are sharing the tomatoes and zucchinis from their gardens. What fruits in my life am I sharing with others? And as I watch the leaves begin to fall, what are the things in my own life that I am invited to let go of so that new life can come when it is time. “ We need an open mind to see the world with renewed eyes and not to cling to old ways of thinking. We need an open heart so as to see the situation through the eyes of those who suffer and be able to show empathy. We need an open will to be able to let go of what is no longer necessary or appropriate to let the new come, to welcome new possibilities. At some point we can also get tired of change and hope we have gone through it all already.This is clearly not the message a constantly evolving universe sends us.” (Sr. Carmen Sammut, MSOLA, “Living Religious Life in a Climate of Change – Examining the Fault Lines”)