North Carolina in the fall is a pageantry of riches. The tapestry of colors makes you audibly swoon in awe. The other day when I was driving home from school with Bird I remarked that the brilliance of fall colors makes me see a higher power in vivid color before my very eyes. I slowed down as we soaked in the lush canopy of towering trees enveloping us. We felt like we were driving through a car wash awash in nature’s leafy glory.
Bird is my child who feels life fiercely and takes things ever so literally. This is why he struggles differentiating between faith and fact. But in this moment, during our simple routine of driving through neighborhood streets, he too marveled at the blend of red, orange, and yellow peppering the branches on one tree alone and dreamily stated that there must be a God to make something so beautiful and make Nature so powerful. “There really is nothing more powerful than Nature, you know,” he told me. “It’s almost magical,” I replied. And he sighed.
So by embracing Nature at the sight of the turning of the seasons, my skeptical son might’ve just experienced an epiphany of faith. Proof that science and faith are inextricably linked versus mutually exclusive. Sometimes we just need an 11-year old boy to show us the way.
