Driving Leaves

The leaves were frantic today. Perhaps they were spooked by last night's storm or just pursuing their seasonal frenzy. Either way, they were in fine feather.

Dashing about in their clutches and clusters, they were blind to all else. Whole hoards of them were crossing lawns and stampeding over roads, oblivious to all but the run.

They seemed more like chattering, hyper-charged critters all in agreement about where they needed to go than dried up leaf litter simply defoliating the landscape.

Where, I wondered, did they think they were heading? What was pulling them so, driving them onwards?

Or perhaps they were not running toward anything but away from something, animated by fear and the desire to escape.

And it was in this confusion of movement that they reminded me of this nation and our frenzied populace. Those leaves seemed to be the animation of our spirit - so many of us rushing about, thinking we are motivated by a call to a greater vision of ourselves and our nation but really just moved by a desire to run from where we are now, heading who knows where, guided by no one more thoughtful or planful than the wind.

It is not, then, to the rush and the noise and the ones frantically vying to keep up with the rest that we should heed, but to the deliberate, the quieter, the thoughtful.

Then, perhaps, we just may be able to find our right way.