To Everything, there is A Season

Eccl 3:1 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: “

This sometimes familiar quote is used when relating to the various seasons of life. While a child, I heard it quoted on many occasions, especially in the context of our Sunday school classes. Those were the days! I was one of those rascals who loved Sunday school and the opportunity to find some mischief to get into most of the time. While I was never destructive, I likely could be disruptive at times. It may have been due to those early years in life that I was labelled as a maverick or a little later on a radical, by some. That is not unheard of in small rural settings, when a lad is over rambunctious, though well-meaning in most cases. The question on people’s minds these days might be, “Has he grown out of it?”

Well, perhaps it stands well within the reaches of that quote in this case. I used to think that life just droned on and somewhere down the line it would just come to its end. I wish I could say that I was always happy in my work, but that is not the case for me. It may seem odd for me to be thinking about such things, and for certain to be writing about it now, yet perhaps I need to face the reality of what life brings and my own unpreparedness in the middle of its flow toward fruition. This is to say that even though I may be far from that point yet, I do see an end in sight! I’ve not always been prepared!

One might question whether anyone is truly prepared. My oldest daughter stated a few weeks ago, “Dad you have re-invented yourself so many times I don’t know how you’ve kept track of it all!” There have been moments when I questioned both my reasoning and my sanity when confronted by a process to make the next decision on the direction in life. I have always tried to make those life changes based on two things; 1^st what is it that God wants me to do? And 2^nd what effect will this have on my family. I wish I could say that there was never a time that I strayed from that formula, but that would not be true. Sometimes we just fall down; exhausted by life, bent by the weight of stresses and expectation and we forget to look into God’s eyes before we look outward to the world.

I’ve been asked why “that” scripture quote held so many negative samples of life being lived. For instance, those that cause the most unrest for the reader seem so “unlikely” to be found in Biblical instruction for our uplifting. The situational irony of words perhaps directs our thoughts away from what is being presented. A popular theme in quotes is; “We don’t always get what we want…” tries to direct us to the idea that sometimes it gets us where we “need to be”… and while it may seem unpleasant at the time, if accepted in humility, may bring growth in both spirit and wisdom. So while falling down, falling short and missing the mark is not satisfying, doing so brings us to another season in life.

At this juncture in life, I am facing death at many levels. Years ago, as I was training for ministry in University, I took courses on “Death and Dying”. At first glance, the syllabus seemed quite straight forward. Perhaps I was wearing rose-coloured glasses, but I was expecting only to be prepared for the work with those who had lost loved ones, as part of ministry. As it turned out, death has many faces and can be identified under many labels. We know that at the ending of life comes death, that is a given, but to identify other indicators, being faced as death, brings a whole new understanding to the seasons of life.

In opening up new avenues of direction in life, there is always the unknown to be considered. Yet, how many of us do not take the time for examination, reflection and preparation for the work to be undertaken. In life we are expected to be both spontaneous and prepared. While these are two very admirable traits, they do not always bear a presence in union with one another. My thoughts have often leaned heavily toward being spontaneous, but it has in the past gotten me into deep water, and over my head, while needlessly carrying the burdens of others. How do we both react on the drop of a dime, when the occasion arises and our time, energy and knowledge are called upon? Is there not something to be said for always being prepared? Yes, of course, there is! The stress comes when self-identity and self-assurance outweighs the training, experience and situational reality of the moment. Overstepping our mark, wading out into deep water, or jumping in to save someone without consideration for our own safety, is folly, yet it happens and once we are disarmed, broken and if not completely destroyed, we must face a new season in life.

In taking on that course, I reflected many times on how life challenges us all with the varying circumstances that we may not be prepared for at all. I was faced to look at such matters as divorce, loss of job, retirement, being uprooted due to the need to move, and even the empty-house syndrome which some suffer from, just to mention a few. I know that having to say goodbye is the hardest. I’ve always thought that one could be prepared both mentally and spiritually, but that is not always the case. In saying goodbye to our children, as an example, as they went off to university and college for training towards life’s work; there was an emptiness that we tried to disguise with new plans for their rooms and jokes surrounding new freedom in life. But, it was merely the beginning of a new season, restlessness in some areas of everyday life, which took years to understand and accept.

Normalcy changes, when illness and the unknown creeps in; waves of fear, regret and even anger arise within us. We don’t like to face it… it is not what we want, it is not what is expected of us, it is not within the definition of our faith in God, but it happens. You see, we are in human flesh. When we get hurt we feel the pain, when we feel pain we cry out, when we cry out any one of a number of emotions can bring us to our knees. What we do while there, makes all the difference.

Today is another day with a change of season. Another friend is gone and I HAVE HAD TO FACE that reality too many times of late. While training and experience stiffen the upper lip, my heart breaks for both the families affected by these recent deaths, and this heart once again faces my own mortality. I wish that we could all live healthy, happy productive lives well into our 90’s, but that doesn’t happen. We face the possibility of diminishing faculties in both mind and body, and how we accept that potential for the future may direct how we live in the present.

The writer of that quote above goes on to point out a rich bit of wisdom, that I shall add here in my closing thoughts:

Eccl 3:10-13  I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.

Take time to consider how difficult your life may have been, how in times of crisis you were perhaps near being crushed, yet you did your best to put on a smiling countenance and got on with it! Many are those who will not want to reflect, having to face those realities again. Yet, we all face those moments at one time or another, and many of us on multiple occasions throughout life. It is part of the journey which always includes the ups and downs, along with those mountain-top blessings that come along. Are you stuck in the valley today? This may be your journey to the edge and you may be wondering both how you got there and how to manage the moment. I have found two things to be of help to me. You may or may not agree, but nevertheless, here they are. First and foremost, look around. I know… it is like being on a tall building and you are afraid of heights! Look around and be aware of not so much yourself but of all life surrounding you.

Somebody has said,” I was sad that I had bad knees until I saw a person with no legs!”. Ok, not exactly, but it is what I think when I get up in the mornings. We often reflect that the worst happens to us and that God has wrought his judgement on us in some curious design, to bring us down; humbled and contrite, willing to capitulate to His bidding! Oh, how the folly of that thinking gets us into trouble! In life, we need to be aware that “stuff happens”… OK… just another form of reductionism, but nevertheless there is a need to face the practical reality of our own stupidity many times. We leave out God and get left behind.

Second, we should be willing to take the next step. Stuck in mid-stride on a tall ladder, or the face of a high, sheer mountain, and having become frozen, unable to move up or down, we need to take that first step! It is hard… It is frightening… it is terrifying… but it needs to be done. We can’t walk on water, but we can depend on God to get us to safety. I’ve had to do it, so I speak with some understanding of the dynamic in external strength that can enable you to do it. Where we step though, is the key. I step back toward truth, toward wisdom, toward knowledge of what is stability… towards my faith in a God who loves me and who will see me through the deepest valleys and darkest nights.

Yes, to everything there is a season. I am not sure what is before me, but I am assured of who is with me. I have family and friends who pray, I have a solid believing Church family who cares, and most importantly a loving helpmate who reminds me daily that she is praying for me. God is good every day…. Every day God is good… in season and out of season… God is good. He has given me those blessings; He will give them to you as well… if you look to Him!

Hard Hats Required Beyond This Point!

It was something that I got used to. It was no good to argue the point, as it was merely a matter of personal safety and corporate liability. You can justify almost any personalized argument you have going on silently within, but a sharp knock on the skull can be avoided if your hard hat is on your head, should you be in under a falling object that may do damage. In the winter, as I worked on a wharf project, in my earlier years, that hard hat had a liner with ear protection from the cold. Floating on a Styrofoam raft on open, choppy, harbour frontage, drilling holes for very long bolts, one needed to be both safe and somewhat warm. But oh the sweat when winter turned into summer and that hat created a dome of suffering. No wonder so many of my construction friends were going bald… my take on the situation!

In later years, in the electrical trade, it was to be worn only on larger projects. It was a matter of personal taste on private jobs, but when contracts were being met; hard hats were required by all who… went beyond that point! One never tires of memories… or I don’t anyway. Perhaps it is the time of life that I find myself in. These past weeks have been busy with both work and company. There have been moments of required reflection, but also many of spontaneous laughter while others reminded everybody present of times gone by, and why they were of importance to them. But, like life has a way handling time, there was soon that turning the tide of laughter to the ebbing of that joy, being replaced by heartache and worry; yes those emotions have been present as well.

As I sat in church on Sunday, we were given an overview of the needs surrounding that particular community. A statement was made about the overwhelming presence of cancer these days. While disease such as cancer is scary, and may, in fact, cause death for some, there are so many other factors in life that we are just overburdened with during much of our waking hours. I have written in the past of the worries and concerns of today’s family units. Little is hidden from view with Social Media these days, giving a forum to those who are in the pain of mere subsistence. They rail out against the inconsistency and inadequacy of a government that is supposed to protect and serve us with both fairness and equality for all; now leaving them adrift in disillusionment and fear.

Today, my thoughts are on track with growing up. My childhood was blessed, no matter the negative reflections that sometimes make their way into my own heart. Evil will destroy the joy, that lives might be upset and destruction become the victor… “Hard hats required beyond this point.” I was tiny for my age; I’ve related that on other occasions. Were you tiny, too tall, a tad heavier than most, or like me needed to turn around several times to cast a shadow? Were you the person voted least likely to be Prom-queen or King of the hill in some of those childhood games? How about never being invited to the parties, last to be called on to join in, and then only when they just needed one more player so the game could go on? There are countless ways which life deals its hammering blows to our psyche and cause us to stumble, just as though we had been hit over the head with a hammer.

Wouldn’t it be great if, like those fairy tales that I pray were read to all of us in childhood, could actually be paralleled in our own lives? Some days I wallow about like “Donkey, in Shrek “, who when looking down cries, “I don’t have any toes… I think I need a hug!” I have wondered from time to time what the importance of those fairy tales was, when it seemed to me as I began to mature, that life began to shove its reality into my face, (far remote from any of the “the good guys always win!” concept of how life could be lived) and the question “why” rang louder by the day. Teenagers question everything, don’t they? Their minds are being shaped, moulded and clouded (did I just say that?) from every side. Yes, shaped by experience, molded by the first waves of ethic; first parental (hopefully moral) and then society’s oft times perverted sense of what can be done or gotten away with (perhaps more these days than in my youth!) Finally, they are clouded by the masked grey issues being tossed about, concerning their identities, need for structure and a foundation of faith.  The laissez-faire attitude of yesteryear has been replaced by a more sinister rebellion sparked by what we called in the 1980’s New Wave Philosophies.

I have found that youth need direction in their lives, they long for structure, but they battle against it. It is their nature. Built into every living creature is that desire to walk, run, fly or just know independence beyond the innate desire to survive.  Why then does there suddenly arrive that rebellious nature in most teens,  that is most often countered by a parental stubbornness, fired by hurt and angst? It is the natural progression of life!

My dear old Mom was a philosopher in her own right. Her take on life was that she would rule the roost until the rooster grew its outer feathers and began to strut. I am laughing as I write. Mom had a corner of the deck enclosed with old storm windows to protect her from those prevailing westerlies, that she called her chicken coop! She decorated it with … yup… poultry signs and she was known as the ol’ hen and Dad was the ol’ rooster (or similar label… not sure at this point… maybe I don’t want to remember! LOL).  She felt that life calls on us individually to find our way, and like the eagle that pushes the chick from the high nest to learn to fly, at some point there is that push needed for our human chicks. We may have many reasons to cling, including financial, physical and physiological ties, but there must come a time, and it shall come, whether we are ready or not.

In a conversation one day I was told, “Keep your sorrows and trials at home! Dad and I are too old to take on anyone else’s worries!” While shocked by the immediate response I got, I was finally able to consider the truth of wisdom. It was not many years later that on the turning of the tide, she said, “But we have grown to depend on your being here for us… what will we do now?”...  It is a shock on all fronts when the safety of childhood, or the support in later years shifts, leaving both worries and doubt to fix its claws into our joy!

My children know that I have worn many hats, besides the hard hats needed on construction sites. In fact, just the other day, in a conversation with the company who had dropped in for a few days, from some distance away, my daughter stated that I had re-invented myself so many times that it must be hard for me to remember them all. While the former has some level of truth, the latter leaves me wondering if I am teetering on the cusp of an invite to forced entry into a nursing home! LOL Those transitions from childhood to teenager, and on through the various levels of maturity; each carries with them the potential of their own set of trials. We enter into the zones of life where… “Hard hats are required beyond this point!” It is not enough to say that with each set of stresses comes a newfound immunity to the backlashes of life. Like the falling snow in winter, much of what we go through carries with it cumulative effects. We can’t always duck the things we see coming. Ask those in the workforce who suddenly after 23 years of work, and just short of their full pension, are given a separation notice as the plant goes into receivership, or just closes after a corporate decision to move the physical plant to a third-world country supplying cheaper labour!

Youth today are confronted by change, change that scares them, change that they are not prepared for, but change that nevertheless they have been longing for in life. Parents have to release, and yet support! They do so by either financial, if unable in any other manner, or with moral support while nudging with love, their fledgelings outward and hopefully upward to wings of success; a success that matches their calling!

It’s a tough world, no matter the position in which we stand. Joy is countered by tribulation and we duck and defend, roll and counter, or we may get hit by that which may stun or even end life if we do not wear the hard hats provided. So, is there a key to the secret of success, a definition both easy to explain and simple to carry through with, beyond the analogy used of a physical hard hat in life. Oh yes, there is. But like most of life, it involves choices.  Going to the ice cream parlour, for a triple cone on a hot day, is like inviting disaster to say the least. You know that heat will collapse that delight and still, you order it up, and are willing to take the chance.  Licking, biting and slurping to keep back the flowing tide of melting goo, you do your best to conquer the task before you! You may end up with a napkin and hands that are a bit sticky, but you’ve enjoyed the challenge and have done your best! You might have stayed home and taken some from the freezer, but where is the fun in that!!!

Going out on some limbs are just plain fun, others are just plain stupid and sometimes you find yourselves placed out there while you watch the tree being chopped down.  In any case, the limb may break. We are the recipients of the results of folly, but also that of life being brought to our door un-invited. When the door opens we have choices! Mom said when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. Oh, the reductionism of such statements. But, is there not a tad of truth held therein?

Absolutely; the pastor said in his message, “Let it be and then be free!”  OK... another tortured attempt to side-step reductionism again that failed. No… it didn’t, not really! In churchese (the language of those who are steeped in Church terminology), the phraseology used may often need to be translated to be fully understood. There is a directive that again means little to those who are struggling, until they let go; throwing up their hands in submission, finally realizing that what is facing them is bigger than who they are, or what they are capable of. Let's consider this for a moment.

Dr. Eugene Peterson wrote a paraphrase in contemporary language of a statement that Jesus made in Matthew 11:29-30. It says: “… Walk with me and work with me… watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." Some will be more familiar with the NIV that states it this way:”… Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

I don’t know how people cope every day without either faith or hope in Christ? Some reading this will not understand, others may immediately reject, but hope in Christ adds a dynamic to the faith that otherwise may leave one reeling without direction… lost, in other words. I put on “THE HELMET OF SALVATION”… some might add “of life, hope and truth”! This is my hard hat.

That happy face is not always possible either, but as this little caricature shows, preparedness can go a long way towards a new level of joy! No matter what befalls me I am secure. I walk to the edge, sometimes beyond a reasonable comfort level out there, in service; I have in fact from time to time fallen over and once fallen hard! But, no matter what, my faith in God, in Christ my Saviour, has me living, kept me living, when I thought all hope was lost!

We spend our lives walking into those areas… the truth is, they can’t always be avoided. What do you have for protection against the storms in life? If you are just muddling along, dodging, while catching up some salves to control the open wounds, why not just stop... Yes, just stop! Is the path you are on the only path and are your needs mentally and spiritually really being met? Walk over there… over there to the edge… see not with your eyes, but with your heart… Ask these two questions… am I succeeding in what I am doing my way and the second, Lord, will you help me surrender if I am no longer able to carry this burden? You might just be surprised at the answer you get! But, it is your choice. Meanwhile, I am praying for you!