Allison Campbell Jensen

Scales, spots, slashes—slipping my knife under the apples’ skin, I remove the oddities, cosmetic surgeon to the Haralson seconds, half the price yet as the peels rise, the perfume is luscious. Then one comes to hand that seems perfect, deep red peel strips off to reveal white flesh. Why did it become a second? It’s a bit small, so runtiness perhaps doomed it.

So minor, this difference, to me and yet to someone grading the apples, enough. It can be mysterious which differences will determine who or what is valued and what or who is cast into the seconds bin. When we look at each other, could we see beyond the skin (sans knives)? Could we catch a whiff of the perfume of shared Spirit? Could we say: “no seconds”?

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This morning’s golden dawn animated autumn’s leaves, even those already on the ground. The feeling of fresh hope with a new day reminded me of the morning of my baptism, some 13 years ago. That was not in autumn, however, but in spring–was the slant of the sun similar or the leading of the Spirit?

Then at church Fr. John turned around and transformed Matthew 22:1-14, which ends in “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” In his sermon, this problematic Gospel passage became an affirmation of new life–beautiful to me as it resonated with my early reflections!

Photographers know how the slant of light changes everything. Today, as Jeff and I played tourist at the Landmark Center, I rediscovered this with my digital camera, as one image invites viewers into its depths, another appears flat as a theater set.

Today the sunlight and I held on as long as possible.

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Early October and the six o’clock church bell rings in the twilight as I untangle the branches and peek under to seek plump, purple raspberries. Bees, too, land and rise, leaving a branch that I lift to drone onto the next. I and they, all of us creatures, may appear peaceful yet I believe the bees share my sense of the shorter days. Do they fly a bit faster? Do they choose a riper berry? Do their insect eyes pause to take in the sunlight’s slant?

While the bees and I hoard, the trees prepare for coming darkness with light: the locust trees shed gold, the oaks don gleaming russet coats, the sumac flames.

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