The Birds and the Trees

There is a tree outside my window and across the way that, for the last week or so, has been the cheeriest mix of orange and yellow. Last week, I felt inclined to make an appoinment with that tree. I kept telling myself I would come back to it to take a longer look. I didn't know what I might gain from the appointment but it seemed like the tree, in its beauty, must have something to say to me with drawing so much attention to itself and all. I felt that ignoring its beauty must be an insult to its Creator to some degree. There seemed to be something to learn there.
Unfortunately, I waited too long to make an appointment. Yesterday, as I drove by the tree, I noticed most of its leaves had already fallen to the ground - leaving the tree looking a little frail and sad. Small remains of its beauty were laying in a heap in the shadows on the ground below.
A little disappointed that I didn't get to enjoy the beauty of the tree more, I tried to think back on what was so terribly important and urgent in my life that prevented it. Probably something on TBS or the Food Network, I assume, or the rush to get home and make my evening meal. It hardly compares. Although there is some food that could easily entice me to a greater degree than the beauty of nature, could one be of more value?
What difference does it make if I don't get the chance to sit down and take in the tree's beauty? Am I any worse off? Why do I feel a little guilty or a little gipped if the fall leaves turn brown before I get a chance to really look hard at the colors? Would it's beauty have added to my life in some way? Would not focusing on its beauty have taken away from it?
Maybe I could just take a picture of it. Freeze the essence of its beauty. Then I can look at it whenever I feel like I have the time. Yet, I conclude, somehow even the most brilliant photograph can seem a little stale- almost like a regurgitated feast of a meal. (pardon the comparison) It just isn't going to taste as sweet as it did the first time going down. And surely it can't provide as much nourishment.
Experiencing God is somewhat like that. There are things that happen in our lives that are opportunities to see God a little more clearly - irreplaceable opportunities to see a side of Him we've never seen before or to be reminded of an aspect of His character. No one can see God and remain unchanged.
There is also a desire to experience God exclusively without having to fight other distractions and lesser desires. Maybe the tree was there as another reminder that this world is not my home. We are to set our hearts on a place where beauty will never fade. I think C.S. Lewis says it best, "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same." (excerpt from Mere Christianity)