The Leaves Let Go

In April The Great Silent Voice speaks, “Time’s Up…release without remorse.” As if on cue from The Conductor, the Oak Tree Chorus responds. The leaves let go.

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Last year’s leaves from the island water oaks have run their course. Their grip on the Great Mother relaxed. One by one, without remorse, complaint or coaxing, they begin their short but final journey ‘home.’ Mission accomplished. Their job complete, the transients collectively head south for their permanent rest.

For a brief few days the oak Titans stand naked, looking sad and forlorn. Their spindly skeletons are exposed. Profuse sunlight shines beneath them. Then the Great Silent Voice speaks again, “Make haste, grow.” The vegetation beneath springs to life, knowing somehow its hour in the sun is short.

Nature is a restless, but highly organized process. It makes all appointments on time. Hard on the heels of the leaves’ departure, small green nubbins, barely discernible to the eye, begin incipient life. Almost overnight the oaks emerge re-clothed, garbed in their new wardrobe.

But back to the fallen leaves, those that have now carpeted the sandy soils below. The Great Silent Voice whispers again to these fallen workers, “Sleep on, rest easy…you have served well. It’s time for another. To cling beyond your appointed time would result in being a dull, lusterless relic of the past ~~ a tragic antique of a bygone age. To remain would retard the growth and defile the clothed majesty of the forest Titan.”

Leaves never talk back. They consent that new life requires them to move on. They’re innately schooled in photosynthesis, knowing that when their green morphs to brown, their ability to synthesize food is terminally impaired. They’ve become useless. Sad, but true.

If oak leaves could think, would they have a self-esteem problem? They’d look around and see billions upon billions of other leaves, and perhaps say, “Of what value am I, one among so many, and a little one at that?”

And if the Mother Tree could respond, “If not for each of you, I could not exist.” Is this answer sufficient to solve a self-esteem problem? A cause for contemplation. After all there is a time and a season for everything.

Sometimes in rare silences it may be possible to hear the wind’s voice whisper. It speaks a tender assurance to the leaves, “As you were not anxious in the day of your birth, be not anxious in the day of your death…well done, good and faithful leaf.” Mystics are not without honor in some circles.

Maybe when we walk out in the early morning light to grab the newspaper we can stop beneath these titans and contemplate on the miracle of the leaf’s ‘Let-Go’ ~~ its first and its last, its one and only. How noble an act!

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Such was a recent thought of my own. It’s a sure bet that letting go is not nearly as hard as we make it…and it must be a great ride home!

I can hardly wait for my own noble experience!

Bud Hearn
April 25, 2014

One and Done

“There is a balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole; there is a balm in Gilead, to heal the sin-sick soul….” American Folk Hymn from Jeremiah 8:22


It happens about this time every year. NCAA basketball playoffs. Many are called. One is chosen. The frenzy culminates in what’s known as ‘March Madness.’ Millions of Americans morph into sports addicts. Maniacal behavior fuels the spectacle. Only kite flying is exempt.

Rabid fans, serial gamblers, money-changing bookies and tail-gate disciples aggregate. Bets are wagered. Teams are idolized. Crazed basketball zealots with painted bodies clog coliseums. Cups runneth over with fermented foamy elixirs.

The whistles blow. Tip-offs begin. For weeks the gut-wrenching, zero-sum games are played. Eliminations are inevitable. One wins. One loses. Joy and tears converge. Two teams remain. Tensions run high. Excruciating seconds tick by as leads change. Back and forth it goes.

One second left. The last shot soars. The ball lofts in a high, slow-motion arc. Dead silence. Nobody breathes. Everyone prays. Swoosh. It’s over. An ear-piercing paroxysm of hysteria explodes as the buzzer concludes the contest. It is finished. Won and done.

Winners gloat, smoke fat cigars; losers lament, “Next year.” The carnival packs up, leaves town. People drift off, wondering about it all. Scribes enter stats in the record books. Sanity is restored. Until next year.

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Catch-phrases, like old Elvis tunes, take hold, hang around, eventually easing into oblivion. The epigram, ‘One and done,’ is currently making the rounds. Basketball coined it. It describes a high school player who goes to college for one year only for eligibility for the NBA draft. He’s now a ‘One and done.’

‘One and done’ is also applied to playoff teams. Take the round-one Duke debacle. Mercer, the Macon mismatch, humiliated Duke, 78 to 71. For all eternity Duke is officially a ‘one and done’ for 2014. The books of basketball history will record in perpetuity the horror of this embarrassment.

The banal ‘one and done’ has segued into street-talk slang. Everything from business deals to romances are tagged ‘one and done.’ A boring cliché. Be patient. It’ll run its course.

It seems strange that Easter would follow such idiocy. It joins with Nature which has miraculously resurrected itself again…never a ‘one and done’ event. Old things are renewed in the splendor of Spring.

Easter slips in unobtrusively. Every bloom on dogwoods, azaleas and even dandelions declares it. We’re caught off-guard by its stealth and grandeur. The Easter bunny is stocking up on baskets, chocolate clones and colorful boiled eggs. Easter lunch buffet reservations are harder to find than hen’s teeth.

Easter celebrations rekindle the Christian’s ‘one and done’ faith, a faith solidly built on the foundation of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Palm-frond processions set the stage for the performance of the pageantry.

The cruelty of even a vicarious crucifixion continues to shock us. We recoil at the savage brutality of humanity. Baffled disciples continue to deny and demand proof. The age-old arrogance of entrenched religiosity and power remains unabated. We continue to stand at a distance while the drama plays out. The question, “What is truth?” troubles us. And we’re terrified of taking up our own cross.

Like March Madness, Easter will conclude with a triumphant shout. After the last sermon is preached and the last Hallelujah Chorus is sung, the crowds will disperse and contemplate the magnitude of it all…this empty cross, this empty tomb. The greatest game in the history of humanity is over.

Who won? No buzzer or scoreboard will announce the victor. We’ll be left with whatever faith we have to affirm the answer. So what will it say to us, to the world?

May it resound that sin lost, faith won, and that now it’s now possible for all believers to enter into the freedom of a finished redemption!

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A century plant, an American aloe, lives in our back yard. Its sap is a balm. Applied, it takes the stings, burns and bites out of life. At an appointed time, from its core emerges a long stalk. It can grow up to thirty feet. Ours topped out at fifteen feet. Thousands of tiny yellow blossoms pop open. Bees distribute its pollen.

Afterwards the agave will die. Yet, even in its death other plants live…an interesting symbol of Easter.

This is what Jesus the Christ, THE true ‘One and done,’ has accomplished for the world and all who believe. Thank God for it.

“It is finished…He is risen indeed”.

Bud Hearn
April 18, 2014

Just Sayin’

So much worthless communication. Words clog my brain. Explosion is imminent. I need relief. So I talk to myself.

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It’s Saturday morning. My wife and I are having coffee. She reads. I think. We mumble. Senseless blather. Everyone does. Why? Mumbling to ourselves is a way of life.

She blurts out, “I veha dedecid to peke uoy radoun.”

“Huh, what did you say?” I ask.

She glances at me with vacuous eyes. “Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

She reads on. I mumble, “Quit reading Jung at bedtime, save it for the pool.” She ignores the comment. It falls lifelessly to the floor. The dog continues to snore.

I’m guilty of inane babbling. Like this morning while retrieving the newspaper, the same paper that floated in a filthy pool of water on the sidewalk…the only puddle in three miles!

The curse was audible as I squeezed out the water. ’Stupid’ was the adjective. It modified the subject which was expressed with a two-word noun. You can probably figure it out yourself.

We talk to ourselves often and in many ways. Mostly it consists of incoherent chatter about random things. For example, you might say to nobody in particular, “Rats, rain again.” Of course, you wouldn’t use the term ‘rats.’ You might utter with emphasis, ‘hitS’! Enthusiasm is critical for expressive self-talking.

In some situations we chatter with more direct exclamations. We denigrate the existence of inanimate objects that have no particular purpose other than to persecute us. Suppose it’s your golf day. You’re in a rush. Your wife says, “Honey, will you fix the sink faucet?” What would your snarl say, “No problem, Baby, right away?” Maybe. But that’s not what you’d be thinking!

So here you are, spoiling your day doing a plumber’s job, work beneath your status, something you are totally inept at doing. Which include most jobs around the house. It only needs a screw. You find one that fits after an hour’s search. It falls into the disposal unit which, coincidentally, happens to be grinding last night’s leftovers. What would you say to yourself? Never mind. We know.

Certain comments, like those made to errant screws, tend to have religious undertones. God is often referred to, followed by instant sickening drivel, like, “So sorry, so sorry. Didn’t mean that.” We’re not the only loose screws on the planet. God made screws for an infallible test of character. Our responses are meticulously noted in the notorious Books of Life for future reference on ‘that day.’

We often use the discursive method. The shower is a favorite spot for flashbacks of times long past. Like ‘that night’ when a partner shared the shower. You hold the soap like a microphone, talk to it. It mocks you. Such reminiscent self-talking usually concludes with a lamentable, “Oh, the good old days…”

I prefer dialectic communication with my dogs. It’s useful when the air needs to resound with my voice, which is seldom heard. For understandable reasons. Much is muted by marriage.

Dogs always agree, never argue. Unlike children, who’re born self-talkers. Like politicians. They’re in love with their own voices, ones full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

My wife often speaks to inanimate objects, like discussion with the tarnished silver service tray. “It’s about time for your monthly polish.” It’s my clue to exit as silently as my words.

Our Lord gets a lot of verbal abuse these days. “Dear Jesus, can things get any worse?” Yes, in fact they can. And it’s a miracle they don’t, seeing how blasphemously we defame deity.

Words are cheap now. Too many of them. Just noise, a dull roar. It’s a mystery why we carry on so seriously. Maybe it’s because nobody wants to hear us pontificate. Your guess is as good as mine.

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Today my wife and I are in our usual places. She asks, “Do you remember last Saturday when you asked me what I said?”

“Remind me,” I say.

“I have decided to keep you around,” she says with a smile.

I knee-jerk a hasty reply. “Only if you resume cooking.” Oops. Silence ensues.

Perhaps in retrospect, I should have simply mumbled instead, “Noly fi ouy emuser gokonic.” He that hath ears, let him hear….


Bud Hearn
April 11, 2014

Illustration courtesy of Leslie Hearn

The Man Who Refused to Listen

Harvey is a friend. His ears no longer work.
He made a choice some years ago. He closed his ears to life.
It did no good to beg and plead, his friends could not prevail.
His ears are now vestiges, their doors are bolted tight.

He didn’t start out that way. It built as he moved along.
He heard the noise the world sent forth. The torment caused him pain.
He feigned at first to remove himself from the tumult and the fray.
But bit by bit the din prevailed. It wounded his brain at will.

We tried our best to talk him out of trying such a cure.
He argued that avoiding the wicked curse made good sense.
He often shook his fist at God for making him like Job.
No answer did he ever hear but silence from The Throne.

He thought that silence was balm to sooth the searing pain.
For in some moment unbeknown it formed his guiding plan.
He’s often asked to tell the ‘why’ of that which he has done.
He answers with a vacuous smile, “I’ve had enough, no more.”

It starts out small as most things do. It became a ball and chain.
Is there an hour when ears go dull, and ignore the providence plea?
Or the reading of a recent death, or the cry of a hungry child?
Or deaf to a neighbor, who needs a helping hand?

Our friend had always heard, just what he wanted to hear.
Indifferent to the cares of life he turned a muted ear.
And now his ears have set him free from trauma everywhere.
His love is turned to bitter scorn, his heart to solid stone.

The ways and means are many to flee life’s vicissitudes.
But isolation makes us live in a lonely tomb.
Some choose to close their eyes to pain, to intrusions of this life.
Others live distracted or in a digital device.

It’s easy to distance ourselves from grief as Harvey’s done.
Turn off the tube, quit reading news and cower in our caves.
But what’s the use of doing that and missing all the joy?
For that’s what life is all about. The bad comes with the good.


I asked our friend to open his ears and try the world again.
“The thing I’ve done is what I’ve done, it’s much too late for that”
But now he sees a paradox in the lifestyle that he chose.
The less he hears, the more he yearns for what he’s left behind.

I wrote my friend to offer advice for others who would try the same.
Weeks went by but then it came, his letter with a terse reply.
The stains of tears were hard to miss as I read the simple words:
‘Unstop your ears, the noise you hear, is music by the heavenly choir.’

The road goes on forever and the party never ends. It’s a lovely dance….


Bud Hearn
April 4, 2014