And To Each Season

While driving up Route 61 north of Hamburg, PA the other day, passing through the gap in the Blue Mountains where the Schuylkill River runs parallel to the road, the site of the autumn leaves on the mountain were absolutely gorgeous.

And then it came the "flash" that L.M. Montgomery spoke of in her book Emily Of New Moon. That moment when God's infinite glory became so clear, and inspiring. It was a spiritual moment when a metaphor of the seasons of the year, became the seasons of a life. Perhaps it was an epiphany, or intuitive insight that lead to me delving into deep thought on the subject.

I know that it is not some new idea, man has written about it for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. John Keats expressed it in his sonnet The Human Seasons. In it he wrote:

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness--to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.

My fifty-eighth birthday is approaching swiftly. I guess you could surmise that I have been taking stock these past few days by the contents of my recent blogs. I have been in a nostalgic, and introspective mood.

I am not bothered by the thought of reaching fifty-eight, quite the contrary. I have come upon the conclusion that I am in a very good season of my life. Like Autumn I am wearing my leaves in the glorious colors of the experiences, all that is perceived, understood, and remembered of my life throughout each season, and as the trees shed there leaves to add nourishment for the renewal of Spring, I pass on to my daughters and their children an education from my course of existence.

During my journey to pick my granddaughter Abby up from school that day, I reasoned that the first twenty years of my life were Spring, the next twenty years were Summer, and I am now eighteen years into the Autumn of my life. I told Abby that when I reach sixty that I am allowing my hair to turn white like Paula Deen's hair. Abby wants me to stay blond. White hair would be the perfect assimilation to the Winter of my life, "snow on the roof" and all that cliche.

I am thankful that God allowed me to have children, and grandchildren. Grandchildren are just wonderful. They get excited when we arrive at their home, run to greet us with arms opened wide, and provide hours of pure unadulterated entertainment. We aren't especially responsible for any of their behavior, and can send them home to their parents after we have spent the day spoiling them, a reality that aunts, and uncles, have always embraced.

I have realized that while learning some lessons in the Spring, and living through the mistakes of the Summer, I kind of like this Autumn time of my life the best so far, and I really would like to stick around and weather out the Winter with my new Paula Deen hair color.


Ecclesiastes 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.