Leaves Turning

“There’s a storm coming,” said the wrangler as we rode past a grove of aspen trees.

“How do you know,” I asked, not sure if he was kidding me. The sky was blue, the breeze light.

“When the leaves twist like that, there’s always a change in the weather coming.”

I still didn’t know if I should believe him, but as I watched the rain that afternoon, I knew he was right.

Days later, when I was sitting in a room full of recovering alcoholics, I realized the same wisdom is true with other kinds of storms. Long before it rains, there are signs . . . if we have eyes to see. For the assembled people, they know that a drink happens long before a bottle is pulled from the cupboard. For others, divorces begin long before papers are signed. Jobs are lost before one is called into the boss’s office, and small pains arrive before the doctor delivers the news.

The question is, can we notice the signs? Can we see the leaves turning as we ride past?

For people seeking to live spiritual lives, the goal is to live in God’s will and not our own. That’s easier said than done, but we know when we are in one and not the other. Sometimes we don’t realize it until it rains, but the wrangler helped me remember there are signs calling out to us to let us know when we’re not completely in God’s will. When we begin judging everything and everyone, the leaves are turning. When we look at someone with envy, when we can only see the mistakes of our past, when we no longer care about the plight of others, or there’s a sarcasm or an edge to something we say, the leaves are turning and a storm is on its way.

We cannot tell the breeze not to blow, but we can notice the leaves. It takes practice and a good dose of humility, but, in time, we don’t need to wait for the storm. We can notice the leaves.