Season - Monday Musing, May 3, 2021

Dear Church,

Season. A season is a period of the year that is distinguished by certain climate conditions. The four seasons – spring, summer, fall, and winter – follow one another on an annual cycle. Each has its own light, temperature, and weather patterns. The angle of the sun and the axis of the earth contribute to the annual timing of a particular season, but sometimes the climate plays games with our calendar.

Technically, spring began for us on March 20, but not every day has felt like spring because there have been days when it has been colder than we like this time of year. Now that we have turned the calendar to the month of May, not only does it look like spring (budding trees and blooming daffodils), dare I suggest that it really feels like spring!

Seasons occur not only in weather forecasting, but also in other areas. Take the church, for example. We are currently in the season of Eastertide, a period of 50 days spanning from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. Each Sunday of the season is treated as a Sunday of Easter.

The writer of Ecclesiastes writes, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter 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” (3:1-2, NRSV). This has been a difficult season of death in the life of our congregation and community. I have read these words from Ecclesiastes at the graveside many times this spring, and there are still more occasions planned for the weeks ahead.

Building on yesterday’s message, let us consider the seasons of our spiritual lives – are we connected to the true vine, the One we follow? If we examine our lives right now, what season would we say we are experiencing? Are we in a dry season, a waiting-for-something season, a tests-and-trials-at-nearly-every-turn season, or a spiritual warfare season? The list could go on and on. Maybe we are in a happy season, and all is well. Sometimes it is difficult to recognize the season of life we are in, and it can be even more difficult to know how to be fully connected spiritually.

My prayer is that we sense God’s active presence in our lives every day, in whatever season we place ourselves. See you in church!

Faithfully,

Darren