The Peripatetic Preacher Visits His New Mexico Cabin

I have for my entire life wanted to participate in one of nature’s grandest displays—the change from green leaves to yellow in the fall. I have several times witnessed the full force of the yellow aspen leaves that surround my cabin in the heart of the Santa Fe National Forest, near the back-packing haven, the Pecos Wilderness. However, I have never had the opportunity to observe the slow, daily changeover from green to yellow. The sight of the full-bore yellow leaves is glorious to behold, but I wanted to see the change occur.

In my full-time academic past, I was never able to stay long enough in our place to see this change; classes and committee meetings and the usual round of academic life prevented my full engagement in this wonderful, and still somewhat mysterious, process. This year, in my sixth full year of retirement, I have the time, the wherewithal, and the still burning desire to see it happen.

Of course, the timing is a crapshoot. In the past, one could almost be assured that full color would be in our mountains in and around Columbus Day (or Indigenous People’s Day, as we California residents now call it). That date has traditionally been Oct.12, and in other visits that has proven about right. However, with a changing climate, with far less snow falling among other changes, one can hardly rely on past experiences. This year, my wife and I decided to arrive on Sept.25, and we plan an Oct.15 departure. I can report that as of today, Sept.27, the plan seems to be working. There are patches of beautiful yellow high in the mountains that we can see from our windows. Yet, the aspen trees near our place, at our approximate 8800-foot level, remain green, though a shade of green tending toward chartreus. In the succeeding two and one-half weeks, we hope to see that yellow take over completely.

A brief word about where we are and how we got here originally. We began to visit this place initially in the late 1970’s. One of my brothers-in-law, had lived on this property when it was a dude ranch when he was in grade school; his father was a manager of the ranch. After the ranch went bankrupt not long after his time here, his father purchased some pieces of the ranch, later selling two of those pieces to us, my wife and me, plus her two sisters and husbands. In 1988 we had a cabin/house built on one of our pieces large enough to accommodate all three of our families at the same time. In reality, we have very rarely all come at once, modern schedules being what they are. But now that four of the six original owners have retired, we do come up here more often and for generally longer stretches of time.

Our cabin is located in a spot known as Pecos Canyon Estates, a swatch of private land right in the middle of the vast Santa Fe National Forest. One gets to us by leaving the city of Santa Fe on I-25, driving to the village of Pecos, and then going up State Highway 63 some 20 miles, rising about 2000 feet in elevation in the process. From our large front porch we have a panoramic view of Santa Fe Baldy, a 12, 600 foot peak, nearly directly west. If one flew over that peak, one would immediately see the city of Santa Fe. In addition to the stunning view of the mountain, we also gaze at hundreds of aspen trees nestled in and among thousands of pines of various varieties. I am at this moment looking out at this magnificent yet tranquil vista, especially at the yellow bands of aspen to be seen at about 11,000 feet, just below the Baldy promontory.

Now that you know something of where we are and the purpose for our coming, what has this to do with preaching, you may be asking? At least I hope you are asking! Several ideas spring to my mind. This amazing sight has been seared on my eyeballs for over 30 years. It is such a part of who I am as a human being, such a powerful and continuous aspect of my makeup as man and preacher. I seldom think of nature or creation or God’s good earth without this sight leaping into my consciousness. How blessed I am to have this spot, this hallowed place, in my life.

Then, too, there is the full grandeur of nature to celebrate. When I read the Psalms—“The earth is YHWH’s and everything in it”—what I am seeing now comes to my inner sight. When I read “I lift up my eyes to the hills,” it is the “hill” of Santa Fe Baldy that swims into view. In short, my life and love of nature, God’s gift to all of us, takes on solid reality here in the forest. And, of course, that magical changing of the leaves in the fall has long been for me the essence of what nature can do to fill us full of surprise and unutterable beauty.

The fact is that no one quite knows just why this color change occurs. Simply put, the chlorophyll disappears from the leaves, living the true leaf color, yellow in the aspens, gold/red in the maples, oaks, and sweet gums, among other hard woods. Several years ago, Diana and I made a new retirement trip to the northeast to witness the changing leaves there. We were fortunate to see the full array in the Hudson River Valley, though we had expected far more in Vermont; it was rich with red and gold wonder. The timing of the change apparently has to do with the amount of rainfall, the cooler night temperatures that fall brings, and other factors that defy simple explanations. Personally, I like the remaining mystery of the change; the fact that no one quite knows is a deeply pleasurable reality, for I am one who adores mystery and surprise, the major reason why I am a believer in God, and especially the God revealed to me in the Bible. “You are a God who hides yourself,” chants Isaiah, right in the middle of announcing the presence and power of God for the exiles of Judah, trapped in Babylon. Note what he says; God deliberately on occasion hides Godself from us, as if to say that this God is not always so easily understood or grasped, and it is God who is doing the hiding.

In the changing leaves I like to think that the hidden God is at work, acting in ways not fully ours to know. As the green turns gold, I see the hidden God flashing just the hem of God’s garment, inviting us to follow God once again through the round of the seasons, as the leaves turn from yellow to brown and then fall to the ground, nourishing the soil for more growth, slumbering beneath the snow to come, followed inexorably by the new birth of spring and summer, moving again toward fall and the leaf’s change once more. “As long as the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall never cease,” YHWH promised the soon-to-be drunken Noah, proving to us all that we can easily corrupt God’s great and natural gifts to our defeat and downfall. Still, the leaves are changing, and I rest in the truth of that change, and trust that God is still fulfilling that promise for the whole earth. Now, as we are all find of reciting, I think that’ll preach!