More to a Season

If we accept the notion that our lives are dependent on an inexorable cycle of seasons, on a play of powers that we can conspire with but never control, we run headlong into a culture that insists, against all evidence, that we can make whatever kind of life we want, whenever we want it. Deeper still, we run headlong into our own egos, which want desperately to believe that we are always in charge. _from Parker J. Palmer in Let Your Life Speak

We talk of seasons; we acknowledge them when the leaves fall and when the snow comes (or doesn’t). We experience each of them for we know these as the natural cycles of life not only in the good world we live but also in ourselves. As Palmer taps into, we easily turn even the seasons onto ourselves and our desire to control. While I encourage us all to a self awareness of where we might be in life, another posture we must also lean harder into is that which is of experiencing more of the grace and knowledge of the Divine – Father, Son and Spirit.

The early church mothers and fathers, springing off of the customs and traditions of their culture began to form a calendar that moved Christians both then and now towards a reminder of the narrative of Scripture and of the movement of Christ in the world. Many of us engage in the richness of the Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter seasons as times where there is intentionality to engaging the practices and posture towards God. Yet the calendar of the Church has richness that encompasses the whole year, not just 60 some days of the calendar. Leaning into the Pentecost we might have our eyes opened to a new and fresh word from the Spirit, and Trinity Sunday as a way to marvel at complexity and simplicity of this 3 in 1 God who pursues us, to then stepping strongly into the ‘ordinary time’ and how even in the simple moments of the narrative – Christ has some thing to say, a challenge for our hearts and a hope for His world.

So may we be a people who see seasons – in ourselves and in our world. May we be a people who see the Father at work in all aspects of life. May we be a people who allow Christ to transform the ordinary. And may we be a people would are open to a new and fresh movement of the Spirit in our lives.