KRYPTONITE

Nov. 7, 2018

Fall leaves. Seriously. The all-around sensory experience that is “fall” in Western PA is a gift - pure and simple. It’s like the bonus round of seasons. Knowing that each September we’ll have a chance to spin that wheel and come up a winner makes the harsh winters and slushy springs more bearable for those of us whose ancestors apparently thought that continuing to migrate eastward was a good idea.

There seems to be no end to the landscape during this brilliant last hoorah. Trees that go unnoticed or unappreciated the rest of the year leap off of the background now like colorful vignettes on the pages of a children’s pop-up book. You can’t not see them. You can’t not notice. How is death so beautiful?  How is that even possible? (Can you sense the metaphor coming? Of course you can. But I promise you that it’s not about dying, it’s about living.)

If you live in an area that was developed over 30 years ago you have telephone poles, street lights and above ground power lines. And, no doubt, you have trees that grow into those power lines. And whoever your electric provider is, it is a given that they will come around a few times a year and slash away at those trees with no regard to beauty, form or symmetry. Safety first and only, of course. But this leaves some trees looking ridiculous - lopsided, uneven and sometimes downright comical.

One tree in particular caught my attention the other day. Duquesne Light had done a particularly fine job on this one – left it with a sort of “Hunchback of Notre Dame with an incredibly large mohawk” vibe. Everything about it just looked wrong. Everything, that is, but one thing. The leaves were insanely beautiful. The colors were punch-you-in-the-face fiery and bright. Fuschia, orange and yellow – the kinds you don’t see in the crayon box – or anywhere. Unreal. And then the metaphor was right in front of me.

Someone did that tree wrong - took from it, stole something valuable, changed it and left it different. Something came along uninvited and beat that tree up – or down – or however you want to look at it. But here’s the thing: the beauty continued. Because the external “wrongs” done to that tree could not touch its DNA, its programmed path - its purpose: Grow. Provide shade. Make oxygen. Create beauty. Die. Repeat.

We humans can be so quick to give in to the way that life tends to rough us up. Real, uninvited and sometimes unpreventable pain happens - often. Someone or something comes along and clumsily lops off a huge chunk of us, or we make our own stupid decisions that sting and burn and leave scars. But those people, those things, those situations, those bad choices and those circumstances – they don’t hold the power. They are not what define us. Our DNA makes us who we are. And in case you’ve forgotten, or never really knew, your genes carry a God-ordained, God-breathed and Spirit-inspired blueprint.

We all look funny on the outside. And the longer you live, the weirder it gets. Go create beauty anyway. Do well and do good. Grow. Thrive. Make someone’s world nicer just by being in it – be their shade, be their breath of fresh air. It’s what you were created to do - no matter what.

Your DNA is kryptonite.

kryp-ton-ite (n)
Slang
Something that presents a particular threat to one that is otherwise powerful.