Seasons
LETTER BY BRIAN MORYKON
A few years ago a friend handed me a printout of John O’Donohue’s “A Blessing for One Who Is Exhausted.” Either the Spirit prompted her or I looked like I needed it or both. In any case, the poem named the state of my soul and the tears mentioned in its lines found their way to my face.
Too often I live in denial of my God-given limitations and cover up my chronic overcommitment with phrases like it’s only a season.
But a season that never ends isn’t a season; it’s a way of life. And if seasons of rest and dormancy are not chosen when the choice is available, they come upon you one day unannounced with frightening force. You have traveled too fast over false ground, O’Donohue writes. Now your soul has come to take you back.
When I received that poem, my soul was coming to take me back. It took a sabbatical and more to return to myself.
I said above to choose rest when the choice is available. Because in reality sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you don’t choose a season; it chooses you.
This past weekend we visited friends who have an eight-week-old and two other kids under five. Being ten years removed, I had forgotten both the joy and the physical intensity of young parenthood. A restful season it is not. Those caring for aging parents find themselves in a similar season of strain, often minus the joy. (If that’s you, may Christ crack open a few windows of rest to strengthen you for the long days.)
Many times, though, we have more choice than we care to admit about our seasons, or at least our daily rhythms. We make a schedule with margin, or we cram it full. We follow our Savior’s lead and prioritize “withdrawing to lonely places to pray” or we follow our own lead and prioritize whatever else. We start our days in humble adoration until our soul is quiet as a baby content in its mother’s arms, or we hit the ground running.
When I choose not to rest when it’s time to rest or not to serve when it’s time to serve, I’m living out of sync with the seasonal rhythms God designed for us. Certain indicators of body and mind alert me to this. I’m irritable. I dread the day. Scarcity taints all thought, leading to breathless attempts to maximize the little time and money I’ve got.
I’m growing more aware of these indicators. And when I notice I’m in a whirlwind of willful activity or a windless cloud of acedia, I take a deep breath and look to Jesus, who was there all along. I search his face for condemnation and disappointment and find none. Learn my rhythms, he says. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. Stay with me and learn from me. Look at the poplar in your yard losing its leaves. I’m making it alive. Listen to the season of things, then go and do likewise.
Luke 5:16; Psalm 131; Matthew 11:28 – 30
Brian Morykon
Director of Communications
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LET’S DIVE IN...
CURATED BY GRACE POUCH
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1.
Two poems by Drew Jackson based on Luke 5 help us catch a vision of Jesus’ balanced cycle of work and rest, engagement and withdrawal.
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2.
In a tree’s acceptance of seasons, Nathan Foster sees God’s invitation “to live life on life’s terms by embracing that which we cannot change, and instead allowing it to deepen us.”
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3.
Katelyn Dixon ends her essay “Living at the Speed of Jesus” with this prayer: “…I worry that patterning a life after your pace will make me look foolish and unsuccessful. Today, I choose to trust that walking at an unhurried pace with you is what my soul truly needs, and what the world needs most, too.”
Grace Pouch
Content Manager
WORTH QUOTING
As in the natural order the living creature must feed and grow, must suffer and enjoy, must get energy from the world and give it back again if it is to live a whole and healthy life. So, too, in the spiritual order. All these things — the giving and the receiving, the work and the rest — should fall within the circle of prayer.
– Evelyn Underhill (source)
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TO CONTEMPLATE
Seashore at Haikko in Autumn
Albert Edelfelt c. 1892
(source)
Psalm 1 says, “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked… They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.”
Productivity culture encourages people to push past their natural limits. But we are not designed for machine-like, always-on fruitfulness. So give yourself permission to bookmark a project, leave a task unfinished, or take a nap. Hunker down in a rain storm. Wander off for an afternoon walk in the middle of your workday. Trying to produce with seasonless frequency is withering and prideful. But when we accept our limits and practice resting and receiving, fruit will come in its season. That is enough.
TO PONDER
A poem-prayer by Christina Rossetti (1830 – 94)
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall — the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.