Crimson, auburn, gold and brown were the colors that lined the Cross Island Parkway as I drove to work this morning. Fall was in full regalia here in Queens, NY as it has been for a few weeks now; another change of seasons in the yearly cycle. As I have written before , (
Here), I am often not ready for the change as I am caught wearing pants in summer and shorts in the winter. Call it Aries’ stubbornness, if you will.
This year was different though. Even with the upheaval and chaos of an unplanned move, (Read about it
Here.), I was ready for the harvest. Seeds that I had planed many moons ago had come to fruition. (A perfect example is
here.) The most special seeds of love and friendship showing great fruit. (One example, among many, can be found
here.)
Driving past the placid Bayside Bay, which is an extension of the Long Island Sound, I looked to my right and see that he water is calm, and flat as if a mirrored sheet of glass extended from shore to distant shore. Dotting this pane of water were the buoys of the marina. In the spring and summer, the bay is full of sailboats anchored off-shore like a nautical garden. People wishing to access their sailboat for an excursion into the Sound would take a rowboat from the marina piers to their boat. Tying their rowboat to the buoy that their vessel was anchored near, they would then depart on their voyage.
But in the cooling days of fall, with the boats presumably in dry-dock, the buoys serves as a reminder that something are missing from this scene.
Not every seed planted makes it to the harvest. Some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the
thorns grew up and choked them.
The beautiful sight of the water put me in a rather reflective mood. (As if you can't already tell that.)
And it isn't only just friendships lost that cross my mind. I think about the bands I had been in and songs no longer sung. Why do I mourn the seeds that didn’t grow? As humans, many of us think of what might have been and it often hinders us in seeing what is now. And as I human, I am no less guilty of that than any one else. In my struggle with the
virtue of forgiveness and applying it to everyday life, I often wonder what skill the farmer must have to be able to let go of those seeds that fell on shallow soil. Maybe the farmer gets as frustrated as I do when the seeds we planted don’t grow to their full potential. Despite all the gains I think I have achieved, I am still a student.
Perhaps, the farmer comes to a place of wisdom in his life and learns not to let seeds land on the road, or to plant them on rocky ground, or among thorns. However, I’ve learned that wisdom rarely comes without the experience of pain from planting the seeds in those very spots. I once wrote:
"Some dreams you hold onto and work out quickly. Some dreams need to get deferred for a time to the future. ("God's delays are not God's denial.") And some dreams may never get attained because of forces outside your control, so you let go of them to pursue the one's that can be achieved.I think that some part of wisdom, and the pain of life lessons, is learning this distinction and making choices so you can live life without regrets (or as close to that as possible.)" (From this
Blog Post.)
The Parable of the Sower, which I blatantly and unapologetically drew from, finishes, “
Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!” Some seeds did fall on good soil, have brought forth much
grain. For that I am thankful beyond measure. And as fall settles in, and as the harvest is finished, perhaps it's time I put my own boat in dry-dock and prepare for the winter and next year's planting.
My morning commute continues and takes me past the Bayside Bay. Memories of springs and summers past are just that. We can not hold onto them. Fall comes into our lives regardless of our wishes. So I put in my Allmans Bros Greatest Hits cd, (my new musical obsession), and smile as the melodic themes of the song "Jessica" blast out of my stereo. I smile and think about how it reminds me of the South and for a moment I imagine that I am not on the Cross Island Parkway, and I am not on my way to work to a job that I really can't stand anymore.
I am at some point in there near future, and I am back in North Carolina. I have manifested the career and life I had intended. And many of the seeds I have planted in the good soil have returned with harvests a hundrefold greater than my my imaginations. (And believe you me, I can imagine quite big.)
For just as it is fall today, and winter will come, spring will sure come around again, as will the time for planting. The boats will return to the Bayside Bay marina, repainted during their winter slumber, to sail into new waters. The wise captain, like the farmer, knows not to go back to where there are no fish.
But that will be next season. And we'll worry about that then.
