The Seasonality of God

 

Teacher: For everything that happens in life—there is a season, a right time for everything under heaven:

    A time to be born, a time to die;
        a time to plant, a time to collect the harvest;
    A time to kill, a time to heal;
        a time to tear down, a time to build up;
    A time to cry, a time to laugh;
        a time to mourn, a time to dance;
    A time to scatter stones, a time to pile them up;
        a time for a warm embrace, a time for keeping your distance;
    A time to search, a time to give up as lost;
        a time to keep, a time to throw out;
    A time to tear apart, a time to bind together;
        a time to be quiet, a time to speak up;
    A time to love, a time to hate;
        a time to go to war, a time to make peace. (The Voice Translation)

 

How are these words stirring and singing to you as we continue to lean in and listen to the wisdom of this passage?  Are there insights that you’ve discerned and discovered by returning to these words over the last few days?  Are there lingering frustrations because you are trying to figure out when there is ever a time for war or hate or killing?  I know those 3 or 28 on the list certainly cause my mind to whirl and soul to swirl, and eventually I conclude I can’t rationally and reasonably explain everything!  One of the lines I love is about mourning and dancing.  This makes me wonder if maybe this list isn’t about separate, segregated, segmented times, but about how the two times on each line above might influence the other.  Is there a connection between keeping and throwing out?  Are some of the times inextricably in tension with each other?  Because at funerals, I have seen tears that no box of Kleenex can stop and laughter that heals the soul.  I have witnessed people share honestly raw emotions and find healing from the ache.  How have love and hate always been counterweights to each other and at the same time coexisting?  How have war and peace always been not distant and disconnected, but so close that we barely know where one begins and the other ends?  I pray today, you might see these 28 ingredients as part of the recipe of each of our lives, that when they get mixed and mingled together, they each contribute to the stew we serve others in our stories.  Hold this.  Hear how these words have been part of your life and continue to be part of the song we are all singing, both individually and collectively these days.  Amen.