Everything Has A Season

A Time to Plant and a Time to Stop Planting

Finally, I found someone who will tend my backyard garden(s) beginning in March. I know I won’t ever be able to garden again. I used to know what season it was just by reaching into the earth and touching the soil and the roots of plants. I knew how much to water my flowers just by looking down at the soil. I knew what to plant next year by examining how well the current flower blossomed. Beginning in March, I can begin looking upward for thoughts of God.

I don’t know how much spiritual imagination will be inspired by seeing blue or white or gray skies and the tips of oaks and tulip trees and lacy elms and redbuds, but God will find a way to talk to me. I envy those who are touched morning after morning by the sight of a full dawn sky laden with warm color and then take a professional picture of that inspiration. Only in the winter when the leaves have blown off of the trees can I see the sunrise and only if I’m awake at that hour. I have to open my front door in my pajamas to see the Eastern part of the sky and even then the horizon can only be imagined. What I can see only gives me insight into the intensity of or lack of color present on the horizon. The same is true for sunsets except it is much harder to see the Western sky from my back door. Kentucky is full of tall, old trees in my little town which hovers somewhere between the horizon and the tops of trees. In fact, one of those 400 year old trees that grew on the corner by the UCC Church lost a huge limb a few weeks ago from ice buildup. At closer look, the tree was rotting and the homeowner took it down. That tree was ancient when I was a kid and I always took comfort in its size.

But, I’ve never found God in nature other than appreciating the beauty. And, the little beings that inhabit the underside of the grass haven’t impressed me other than sending me home in fear when I was a kid and much closer to the ground. I do admire the worms who can make good soil out of clay. I used to buy hundreds of worms from bait shops in little, white containers that looked like Chinese takeout and sprinkle them in an empty garden early in the spring season knowing that the soil would quickly be renewed into a flower bed ready for planting. But, God doesn’t talk to me through useful, practical stuff. He comes to me in extraordinary ways.

That’s why I’m sure that I need to seek palliative care in January when my new health insurance kicks in. Through scripture about ten days ago reading Jeremiah and learning who Baruch was, I felt approved of as a faithful companion and as someone willing to endure in all kinds of circumstances. It was time for me to take care of myself and stop looking for things to occupy my hermits life. Give up. Give in. I feel relieved. It is time to embrace being a hermit.

Shortly after reading those passages in Jeremiah 45, I found Ecclesiastes and the passage that gives wisdom and joy to the one who pleases God along with Everything has a Season and encouragement to find joy in simple daily pleasures and accepting life’s impermanence.

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Everything Has A Season

For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.
a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal;
a time to break down and a time to build up;
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek and a time to lose;
a time to keep and a time to throw away;
a time to tear and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

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