Giving thanks for our Red Maple Leaf and the sacrifice it symbolizes

National Post, 09 October 2023

Our flag calls to mind the sacrifice required for a country to be beautiful, to be free, to be at peace

All holidays require a measure of preparation, the hustle and bustle of hospitality. At Thanksgiving nature prepares too, in a seemingly effortless way. The fall colours enhance the landscape, trees painting themselves in shades more lovely than any tablecloth or centrepiece.

This past summer I heard a complaint — in the vein of Canada’s eroding national identity — that the Maple Leaf on the national flag was “dead.” I had not heard that before, so enquired. Maple leaves are green when the leaf is doing its work, photosynthesis producing nourishment for the tree. The leaves turn red — or orange, or yellow — when that life-giving process shuts down. The leaves turn, and die, and fall to the ground. A huge pile of raked leaves is fun for children to frolic in, but they are playing among the dead, not a happy thought.

The Red Ensign, our flag before Lester Pearson changed it in 1965, also had red maple leaves on it. But the leaves were green, until 1957, when they were changed to red. The “dead” red leaf then became the dominant symbol on the current flag. Also not a happy thought.

I prefer another approach to this vexillological vexation.

The red leaf is dying, but dies to give way to greater glory. The dead red leaf is the autumnal sacrifice. A price has been paid. As the red and gold leaves fall, they raise our minds and hearts with their beauty. Beauty, too, is costly.

The sacrificial leaf may call to mind the sacrifice required for a country to be beautiful, to be free, to be at peace. Some are summoned to the summit of sacrifice, like the leaf which dies.

There is a law written into nature. Something must die so that others might live. Life feeds on life. The Thanksgiving table is groaning with “dead” things — the turkey, now defunct, and the turnips and cranberries. All are no longer living. Like all our food, meat, fish and vegetables, they used to be alive. Food only gives life if itself was once alive, but is now dead. Life feeds on life.

An exception might be those cans of cranberry sauce, the gelatinous goo that seems more a chemical contrivance than a choice comestible. Yet even that has its distant origin in something that was once alive.

Without the principle of sacrifice, life is not possible. From the mother in labour to the seed which falls to the ground and dies, life begins in sacrifice, is sustained by it, and depends upon it. At Thanksgiving we praise God for the harvest, but what is the harvest if not the produce of the land giving its life that we might live? The law that life feeds on life admits no exceptions.

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