Yesterday I reaffirmed my baptism. This did not happen in the context of a traditional worship setting. It happened on a morning walk along the streets and green spaces of our neighborhood. It was not something I intended to have happen. It just did. I was really minding my own business, walking along trying to shake the night’s sleep out of my brain. The cold, crisp air was simultaneously invigorating and causing me to want to head back home and crawl under the covers. The Big Black Dog and I were doing our usual morning tango of step, step, stop, pivot all based on the power of scent. In one of our graceless stops, I looked ahead of me to see the trees slowly letting go of first one leaf and then another. Even though no wind seemed present, all around me the air was filled with the delicate, slow movement of leaves. Leaves making their way from the branches that had held them for months. Leaves that had let go of the life they had known.

Why was it a reaffirmation of baptism you ask? For some reason I felt the need to stand still and allow these leaves to fall gently around me. I stood in the center of them as they let go, as they brushed the top of my head and fell inches before my eyes. I listened as they made this sound that reminded me of the same sound snowflakes make if we truly listen. ‘Plink’. ‘Plink.’ ‘Plink’. Each tiny yellow leaf made this musical sound as they landed gently on the ground. As the leaves fell, I stood among them allowing them to remind once again of this precious, fragile, finite life I live. It seemed a sacrament,a baptism of sorts.

Watching the leaves fall and interacting with them as I did, I was reminded of a book I had many years ago. It was meant to be a children’s book, I think, one that would help children understand, in some not too scary way, the concept of death.The Fall of Freddie the Leaf by Leo Buscaglia used the varying ‘personalities’ of individual leaves to tell the story of what happens when the leaf lets go, of the ways in which the leaves have watched their neighbors fall, and their own questions and fears about that letting go. It was a good parable as I remember.

Standing under the ‘plinking’ leaves, I thought of of Freddy and his leaf friends. Some wanted to hang on, to be the last to drop from the familiar home of their branch while others seemed to know they were participating in a life cycle that was to be honored and experienced for the mystery it is. I thought of Freddy and of all the human ones I know who are experiencing their own version of ‘letting go’. There are those I know who are letting go of the lifestyles and ways of being in the world that have been familiar. Others are letting go of children who are growing or moving or changing which is what all children must do. It doesn’t make the ‘plink’ any easier to hear. Some folks I know are slowly releasing their grip of the work they have held dear while others are finding new ways to live in changing bodies.

Truth be told, life is a long dance of letting go. This is true not only for we who walk upright but for all Creation. It is in letting go that we make room for what is yet to be. It is in letting go that we experience new life. We see this movement in the trees, in the birds who are heading south, in the light that is losing its power against the darkness of autumn days. Each day is a letting go of what went the day before, what we gave to the rest of the night, in an effort to make room for what is this day will bring.

In the Christian tradition, we speak of the waters of baptism. In our culture, we often say someone has been baptized by fire. But yesterday,I was baptized by the yellow of leaves falling. It was a wonderful lesson in one of the most elemental, and beautiful, gifts of life.