COMMEND MY SPIRIT

It was fall-time. There was sun. Light. Warmth. With cold coming.

I was returning from Arlington Cemetery, from the interment of Georgie Bowman, wife of Louis, mother of Dale, lover of Dog Moglie, friend of mine.

You know this time. The leaves-of color are suddenly gone. Did they leave with the winds of yesterday, or the rain of last weekend? We don’t notice their going – only their being gone.

But now I can see light differently, through the spaces once held by the leaves-now-gone. The leaves remaining have become, somehow, more transparent, making the light different, more beautiful. Almost surreal.

And it came to me. Is this what we see, what Georgie saw, what Jesus saw as we move away from the life we’ve known to the life with Light? Is our focus more on The Light than on the leaves? And Jesus said, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Amen.

— Marilyn Dukes Bursch

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist