To those reborn by the Spirit of God and hidden in Christ, God says, “You are like a tree.” And not just any tree. You are a tree with three defining features: (1) you are planted by the source of life—God himself; (2) you yield good fruit in season; and (3) your leaves never wither. You are a super-tree. You are a tree with no winter threat.

Up and down our street, the fall leaves have gathered like old bits of paper—final drafts of summer stories let go in the coming cold. I remind myself of why this happens.

When the temperature drops, trees begin producing something called abscisic acid, which closes the doors between leaves and their stems, cutting off the flow of nutrients. Chlorophyll production ceases, drawing out other pigments of color in the leaves before they dry up and drop off. The trees then enter a state of dormancy, a sort of hibernation. In the heartwood of the tree, the phloem (food-carrying tissue) slows down, and the xylem (water-carrying tissue) freezes. Everything churns to a near halt for a season of rest and stillness.

I know this and then take a step back and ask the question again. Why do trees lose their leaves? Because the chapters on warmth have ended. All the stories of the leaves have been told. The next seasonal chapter relies on the sugar gathered by those leaves. The stored sugar can sustain the roots and the rest of the tree until the temperature rises again. In late March, when the earth shifts a bit closer to the sun, the promises of new stories in the trees will emerge as buds—seed-like pages waiting to unfurl and speak with the sun. Their conversations will take on crowning chlorophyll again. And eventually those leaves will fall to the earth with their veined stories.

Stories…there are so many stories gathered on the ground. That’s what I kick through in October and November: stories told. That’s what our dog sniffs at as we walk down the street each day.

Around this time of year, I think of what it’s like to be a tree, to leave so many stories on the ground. It sounds silly, but thinking of yourself as a tree isn’t so crazy. God encourages it, in fact, in the very first psalm.

Psalm 1

Psalm 1 is a short but potent depiction of two types of people, two types of trees—though we don’t meet the tree imagery until verse 3. For the psalmist, there are only two sorts of people that exist: wicked and righteous. That doesn’t mean there aren’t degrees of severity on both sides, but it does mean that there’s no neutral middle. There is no one who is neither righteous nor wicked. We tell the stories of our lives on one side or the other.

How do we tell our stories? How do we give meaning to the minutes and hours of our lives? The psalmist uses three verbs.

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers…

Everyday our lives tell stories as we walk, stand, and sit. To walk is to follow; to stand is to surround ourselves; and to sit is to speak. Let me explain.

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