You have heard of the lilies of the field, and how I tend to them. You are My lilies, beloveds.
I tend to every tree and their leaves. You are My trees, and you are the leaves of My trees.
To you, I am devoted.
You may say that lilies pass their prime. You may say that trees are chopped down. You may say there is plenty of hurting in the world, and that you have not been spared.
Perhaps if a leaf thought as you, it would object to its falling in autumn. The leaf does not question, for although the rain beats down on it, the leaf knows that the rain that falls nourishes it. The leaf does not know words. The leaf does not think. Instead, it drinks the water that it receives and lets the rest roll off.
Nor does the leaf consider that when it doesn't rain, and it is very thirsty, that it has been forgotten. It does not feel sorry for himself by the fact that the soil it is embedded in is dry. The leaf trusts that it is taken care of, and that rain will fall. A leaf does not grow bitter. Whatever is, a leaf knows it exists on God's Earth.
A leaf does not look at either rain or drought as fatal. A leaf accepts what comes.
You might say that if you were like a leaf, then you would be passive. Certainly, you are not meant to be passive. You have legs to move you. You have the advantage of being able to get out of the rain. When it's dry, you have the advantage of going to a stream where there is water to drink. Unlike a leaf, you do not have to stay where you are. And you, like a leaf, do not have to argue. A leaf does not feel sorry for itself. Unlike you, it doesn't take rain or drought as personal to him. A leaf understands that it is part of the panorama.
Do not mix up equanimity with passivity.
You too do not need to get distraught by whatever befalls or does not befall.
You have choices that the leaf does not have. You can get frantic if you want. You can run around in circles. You can shake your fist. Yet how much wiser is the leaf than you. If you were a leaf, you might have shriveled up on the tree by now. You might have bemoaned your lot.
But you are not a leaf. You are a Human Being. In one sense, you have been blessed more than the beautiful leaf that stays on its branch and then, at a given time, falls lightly to the ground, to dry out and to be raked up or left to renew the soil. The leaf does not make a big thing of its circumstances or changes in its appearances.
Yes, there is much for you to learn from the lilies of the field and the leaves on trees, and from the trees who stand tall and the trees that bend. You can learn much from everything. You do learn a great deal, and yet, not always do you learn that which is to your benefit.
But never mind all this about learning or not learning. The true lesson from nature is just to be. Shed some of the clothing you have put on, the discernments, the rules and regulations, the shoulds and the won'ts, the can'ts and the musts, and the how it's supposed to be's. In other words, let go of much of your accumulated thinking. Oh, if you would let go of past thoughts and find some new ones, or find none at all! Oh, if only you would let go and start anew, and, like the leaf, let every day be what it is, and therefore new and newly welcomed.