The Seasons of Life

 

Yesterday, I introduced the four seasons of life from Brian McLaren ~ those being simplicity, complexity, perplexity, and harmony.  We pondered how you might find parts/pieces of your life right now in all four seasons.  For example, there is a beautiful simplicity for me right now in my morning prayer practice of reading devotions and prayer as well as writing these morning meditations.  There is a holy flow I feel as I sit and open my soul to God.  There is a complexity within me as my wife and I try to figure out how to “parent” two college students, how to be “empty nesters”, and how to be here in this new place.  There is a perplexity as I look at the world and what is my response?  What is mine to do when the world clamors and cries out from discrimination, pain, war, violence, hunger, hurt, and climate change?  How do I respond in ways that are loving, caring, and where the practice of the good is a challenge to the bad.  How do we lament the brokenness without becoming cynical?  There is also harmony as I encounter people who are living a different way and as I laugh with others and as I walk outside connecting with the trees above exchanging carbon dioxide and oxygen with each other. 

These are but a few examples. I pray the four seasons might speak to you and spark a new thought within you.  As always, if you want to talk more about this, need more descriptions or definitions, be in touch.  May God who is present amid all the seasons of life in their beautiful and messy and chaotic contradictions and celebrations hold and enfold you.  For you are breath and stardust; you are light and beloved; you are held and released to be who God is crafting and calling you to be this day. Amen.