from "The Temple Transparent" in The Fragrance of God
Behold, I will send my messenger,
and he shall prepare the way before me;
and the Lord, whom ye seek,
shall suddenly come to his temple.
Malachi 3:1, KJV
"This autumn, after an awful summer drought, the trees blazed in lustrous shades of red and orange, but the flames on their branched candelabras were short lived.
Heavy rains snuffed them out, and cold winds sent the leaves in trembling flocks to an early earthen rest. It brought to mind some lines from Robert Frost:
They fall from giving shade above
To make one texture of faded brown
And fit the earth like a leather glove"
("In Hardwood Groves").
"One November morning, I was perched in a posture of prayer, as at a kneeling rail, on the second-story hall balcony that overlooks the great room of our new
home in Culpeper, Virginia. Out the Palladian window, my eyes followed the mowed path from the unfinished patio down the terraced perennial beds, in which
waved gay plumes of ornamental grass and dried bouquets of goldenrod, on through the vegetable garden, haunted by withered vines and skeleton stalks, into
the meadow, all amber this time of year, and out toward the gray scarf of naked trees and briar thicket that hugs Hungry Run.
"The sun rode low in the east, just high enough, however, to illuminate the wooded hill and pasture on the far side of the stream. The light, as in a Byzantine icon, seemed to issue not from an external source but from within temple walls. I missed this scene last fall. While our home was being built, I dug in dozens of shrubs and perennials and hundreds of spring bulbs on the backyard slope. But I worked late in the day, at sunset, when shadows shrouded the wood and pasture. My wife, June, and I moved in on Holy Week. By then, the daffodils that I had planted were spilling down the bank out back like yellow paint from a tipped-over bucket. And the maple trees were opening their clenched fists and drawing a sylvan veil over the temple sanctuary.
As the leaves fall from the trees, the summer veil is lifted,
and darkness is made visible.
Through temples transparent, saints and sinners see into secret earthen sanctuaries.
I am reminded that when Jesus died on the accursed Tree,
the curtain of the Temple tore open,
and the Holy of Holies was shown.
"In late November, Advent begins, and the great Epiphany draws near.
The naked babe, blanketed in supernal light, is the Holy of Holies,
opened to ordinary eyes.
St. Ephrem the Syrian says that
is the treasure store of all things:
upon each according to his capacity
He bestows a glimpse
of the beauty of His hiddenness,
of the splendor of His majesty.
Hymns on Paradise, 9:25"