Pablo Picasso once said, "Every act of creation is first an act of destruction."

I wonder, sometimes, whether there is some design behind the fact that God created light on the first day and waited until the third to create trees upon which to shine it. I have a hunch, nevertheless, that God's act of creation was carried out in autumn - just in time for Earth to die - so He could paint creation with His brightest brush.

Mother Nature dies this time each year, and the colors of her demise are always spectacular. Neither the most skilled playwright nor the most accomplished opera composer could conjure a death scene as gloriously dramatic, no matter what light is cast upon his players' stage.

And it is remarkable that Earth's death throes are made beautiful by appeal solely to one of our five senses. Earth dies in absolute silence, absent of any fragrance, taste, or touch.

I don't recall to whom this might be attributed, but it has been said that when we die, we each die alone. Watching Earth die in all her magnificence gives me a sense of holy solitude, a sense of completeness as a circle drawing back to its point of origin, a sense that something far greater than any man can comprehend is unfolding before me.

It's a sense of the Word becoming flesh.

And as I watch it today, all my senses overwhelmed by color, I can comprehend only one thing:

I am.

And that's all I need. The rest is gravy.