Author: Kevin Wondrash

Some people have actually heard corn growing. They tell me this happens when all the conditions are just right; enough good weather and plenty of rain.

Looking around our area makes me think there must have been a lot of noise in the fields this past growing season. Corn, beans, hay, grains, you name it, they have all grown like gangbusters. What a miracle when we think how it all comes from seeds that are planted.Maybe, if you are like me, reminders help from time to time. Harvest season is upon us. Gardens and fields both are producing the fruit from all that has been growing. I am reminded that our God of all creation planted the seed of faith in my life to bear good fruit. If the conditions are just right, and with enough prayer, receiving the sacraments, striving to love God and my neighbor, this can result in a fruitful life.

Hearing that there was a wise man who knew everything, the story is told of one who was younger and wanted to prove it. Taking the smallest from a flock in a nearby tree, he approached and said, “Tell me old man, I have a bird in my hands, is it alive or is it dead?”

The wise one looked and thought, “If I say it is alive, he will close his hands and crush the life out of it. If I say it is dead, he will open his hands and let it fly in my face.” He looked once more at the young man before him and answered his question with the words, “It is in your hands.” Life or death was in his hands.

Ax felled autumn is no fall at all, death only has color when entered by the living.

The bright hues of orange, yellow, and red which will festoon our trees these coming weeks make an important statement. Namely, what was there all along finally becomes visible for us to see and enjoy.

Leaves which had been green for months gradually show their true colors as the seasonal process of dying takes its course. If this process were to have been stopped by laying an ax to the tree, the leaves would simply have turned brown as the result of having been cut off from their roots, their life source.