Besides being a catch line for a top 40 song, it's true that even in the earliest phases of fall that leaves fall to the ground as if they were raindrops. They are diverse in size, shape, colour. Of course they are a trademark of wimpy trees, usually no bigger than a radius of 15cm.


In a world with priorities, deadlines, speeding and speeding tickets, worries and inhibitions, a young man with all of these to his own will go for a late friday evening stroll through downtown--only to find out that none of those things matter. At all. They come and go like the leaves; they grow on the lives of peoples who allow them, but it's not the leaves we see standing later. It's not the leaves that stand the test of time.


What does matter? What is it that leaves a lasting mark--what is it that we see standing after the leaves are gone?


Words spoken, actions witnessed, relationships maintained...these are all good. But the thing that matters most is easily witnessed in a brief moment on this young man's late evening stroll. There, on the most insignificant stretch of insignificant stores and amongst a collection of the most insignificant people, there sits another young man, who looks up and utters a few things--he needs money. Some, however, might understand that this sitting young man needs something bigger and better than money. He needs something that matters more than money, he needs something that amalgamates all of the best that more than this world has to offer.


He needs love.


And it's love that is what is standing when we go into winter. A tree with no leaves is not dead. A tree is the core of the being that makes the being function, from it leaves grow and leaves fall. It's love that matters. To love, to be loved. Love leaves a lasting mark; it scars when it hurts, it's the reason we cry at a funeral.


It's all that matters. Love, never like a leaf, never comes and goes. And so, peering out a window, I'm reminded of this universal, mathematical phenomenon that God created and called "Life". Everything is beautifully, perfectly related. Admire for yourself--I promise you, eventually you'll crack a smile.