One of my fondest memories as a child was not raking the autumn lawn. I was too little to maneuver those long poles with the fan-like hooks for gathering fallen leaves into piles. My joy began when my older siblings pushed those heaps together up against the three-foot wall that surrounded our yard. Then, when the stack of multicolored, quilt-like suppleness was high enough, we’d take turns jumping off the wall and landing safely into the marshmallow-soft mattress of nature’s own making. We would do this over and over until we had to stop leaping long enough to regroup the scattered cushion into a restored mountain for more soaring fun onto autumn’s fallen feathers.

The other happy chore was searching through the piles for the best and brightest leaf, which would be given a place of honor inside our home. Each year we would present the winner to mom and watch as she carefully wrapped it in plastic and pressed it gently into our family Bible on the coffee table in the living room. In no time at all, this holy ironing process preserved the beauty of the fallen leaf for the longest time. When you’re young, a few days can seem like forever. Eventually, mom would remove the current year’s winner, and we would have to wait three more seasons until the next vibrant trophy took its place in the Good Book.

When I was older and curious enough to want to know why foliage changed colors, I’d search through the Encyclopedia Britannica, which our folks had purchased from a door-to-door salesman whenever they could afford the next volume.

Why are the leaves shedding their green for gold, orange, and red? Why are they falling off the branches? Why was the Bible platform called a “coffee table” when I never saw adults setting down a cup of caffeine next to the scriptures and picking up the Bible to read a passage or two? We were a devout, Catholic, Sunday-to-Mass-going family, and like many parishioners of our day, we prayed the rosary. But we spent more time dusting rather than reading the Bible. When I was old enough and could read, I used to examine the front pages of that book where mom had carefully recorded the dates of each child’s birth, baptism, and confirmation, and much later, the marriages of my older brothers and sisters.

With the biology classes I took in school, some of the magic of autumn faded as I learned the scientific reasons why leaves turn colors, why they fall to the ground, and why “evergreen” trees are aptly named. By then, raking and bagging leaves was only a chore as I had lost my childhood enthusiasm for jumping into leaves from a wall that was no longer tall enough to elicit a thrill to go frolic and play.

The family Bible still sits on the “coffee-less” table with mom’s handwritten history of our progress through the sacraments. Dad has purchased a combination “leaf-blower-and-mulcher,” which is far more efficient than the hand-held rakes and heaving garbage bags curbside for the recycling trucks to cart away. But the attraction of autumn remains in the changing of the seasons, the crisper air with its sweater-weather temperatures, and the promise that Halloween holidays and Thanksgiving dinner will be arriving soon.

Nevertheless, I believe the magic of autumn turns into religious mystery as we begin to see ourselves in those changing leaves and the yearly repetitions of the circle of life. We grow older like the aging forests reaching higher and higher toward the heavens while holding tightly to our roots in peaceful family gatherings. Our cherished memories are stored affectionately in our minds like the colorful leaves pressed into that family Bible—seldom read perhaps, but always practiced in our love for God and one another.

Holy Homework:

Let’s rescue a fallen leaf from outdoors and press it between the pages of a favorite book, hopefully the Bible or at least a volume with a spiritual theme, and one that has pages worn from our reading and rereading.

Comments may be sent to FatherBobPagliari@Yahoo.com