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Seasons Again

                                             “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest,

cold and heat, summer and winter,
day and night will never cease.” (Genesis 8:22)

I’m stuck on the approach of fall, and the time of harvest and thoughts about seasons. One essay I saw said there are 6 seasons to our lives: Dry, Waiting, Grinding, Tests & Trials, Spiritual Warfare, and Happy. I don’t know what I think about that.

          Another essay that I found far more interesting didn’t tell so much about the specific seasons, but it gave advice for how to experience them:

1. No matter what season you are in, no season lasts forever.

2. Change of seasons is not a sign that you are good or bad person

3. Never let the season you are in define who you are.

4. Most seasons are followed by opposite seasons.

5. We need to build consistency in every season

6. Learn from every season that you are in

7. Keep the Right Season in your Heart no Matter the Outside Season

8. Prepare for the Next Season

9. God is at Work in Every Season[1]

          From this list, one of the things I must note is that seasons of life aren’t like seasons of the year. They’re more like seasons in books by G.R.R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson. For them, each season may last a day, or ten thousand years. There’s no way of knowing. And the cycle of seasons is basically a joke. In those novels, the only season that can’t follow summer is summer.

          Something else I’ve learned about seasons over the years is that they tend to be artificial. We talk about spring, summer, fall, and winter, but the reality is that spring and fall are nothing but the transition between summer and winter, or winter and summer. While we think of spring as a time to plant, the reality is that – at least in Pennsylvania, a lot of planting takes place in the last half of spring.

          Not only are they artificial, but they’re also deceptive because they aren’t simple. One doesn’t only plant in spring. One can plant a second or third round of crops. I have garlic waiting to be planted because it’s supposed to go in the ground in October.

          I suspect that the seasons of life also tend to be artificial, complex, and as unpredictable as the seasons in Martin’s and Sanderson’s books. If things were as regular or simple as they’re sometimes portrayed, I’d be at the time of life when I should be enjoying the benefits of my labor – the harvest should be coming in. I know some people who live that way. What am I doing?  I’m trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I’m planting seeds of a new career and trying to get rid of weeds. Isn’t that a spring thing?

          There are books that tell a person what to do in their garden each month of the year. I’d like one of those books for my garden, and another for my life. The problem with the gardening books is that quite frequently they describe a garden that isn’t like mine. There are cold frames and plants I have no desire to grow. As an aside, the irony does not escape me. I’m not all that fond of vegetables. I don’t like spiders or dirt and my seasons are truncated by my migration south. What in the world am I doing with a garden – and yet, I must garden. My harvests aren’t what I hoped, but next year it will be different, and I’ll try again even though I have failed every year.

I suspect these are more of those lessons that are supposed to transfer from garden to life. What the instruction books, including the Bible, say needs to be adapted and applied to our lives as they are. I’m not saying we should ever ignore any part of Scripture. But the parts of the Bible that talk about being a wife or a mother have never been applicable in a straightforward way. I’ve never been a wife or a mother. I know they are invaluable roles, but that doesn’t mean either that there’s something wrong with me, or that the things taught about them aren’t just as important to me, if only they are adapted to the reality of my life.

I’d really like to be able to color code my seasons, or my months, or my days. I’d like to find a way to enjoy the seasons of the year, and to do the things that make those seasons unique. I’d like to do the same with the seasons of my life. I’m open to ideas. Or to scent activities – to somehow celebrate the things that – at the moment – furnish my life, or that might inspire my creativity.

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