Families, churches, nations - there are always times for common rejoicing, times to share common grief, times to admit we are in grievous upheaval. How wonderful it is, then, to know that our loving, merciful God intimately accompanies us during all of those times. The Book of Ecclesiastes captures this so well:
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
(New International Version)
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
When we allow ourselves to be "stuck in time," we can think that nothing will ever change for the better. Yet the growth of new life is happening everywhere, all the time. In our families, churches, and nations, we experience the arguments that contain killing words that we think no-one can recuperate from. And yet, somehow over the passage of time, healing breaks upon us like the dawn. In our neighborhoods, we see buildings - even churches - torn down. Yet something new and equally valuable is rebuilt in their place. We plant lawns, and then see them covered over by parking lots for new stores or apartment buildings, and we mourn because the neighborhood changes again in our lifetime. But new people live and laugh and love in the new neighborhoods. We weep over the death of a loved one. But we live to laugh when we see the unexpected, glorious birth of a child.
Change can be painful, but only change can bring new growth. Our Universe is constantly expanding; everyone and everything is constantly changing. We think that, as an individual or a community, we are planted in one place; suddenly we are uprooted and asked to put down roots somewhere else. In our churches, we want to keep a particular Liturgy or translation of a prayer, or familiar priest or minister, yet the familiar is taken from us and we have to grow into new ritual, new words, new relationships. Our group desires to stay one race or ethnic group; then the stranger Christ comes among us, a new color, a new culture, knocking to seek admittance. We weep and mourn at the "funerals" of our dreams and self-images, but then we laugh and dance at those unexpected "weddings" that fuse new ideas and insights into one for us. Behold! The Holy Spirit sings. I am always, always doing something New!
From youth to old age, life changes, - and changes us. The young who are married think sexual love between them will never end - yet old age and illness can cause them to refrain from sexual embracing, and discover that love between them still lives. The young love collecting and keeping so many things, from clothing to houses to cars. Yet old age finds them stripping down to simplicity and giving things away for others to enjoy. God needs every season of our lives. When we are young, we pour our boundless, passionate enthusiasm in torrents over the dry earth. When we are old, we gently shine on all as serene moons of wisdom.
The seasons of war keep us in dread. Over and over, wars take place in every setting, in dining rooms, Board Rooms, in Parish Council meetings, in Dioceses, between nations. Honest people choose different sides, and are reviled for the positions they take. People throw stones! Yet every person's opinion, every side, can reveal a new part of Truth, as various prisms are needed to reveal the total beauty of a chandelier. The whole fabric of a family, church, or country can be torn apart in ideological wars. Yet always prophets will arise who pray and seek and speak the words that sew divided hearts together in the Holy Spirit's own time and own mending. When peace eventually comes, the war, which was a trial by fire, can result in new maturity, a greater appreciation of what was temporarily lost and is now re-found. Spiritual stones, gathered together, can build new edifices of hope, new portions of the Body of Christ.
During these tumultuous seasons of our lives, change after change perplexes us, tears us apart. Who is God anyway, we ask. All we can discover is a love that undergirds each day, a hope that endures when we are most spent, a faith that lives like a little candle in our grieving heart, an unexpected surge of patience, an uplifting joy that seems to spring out of nowhere. We search for years for the answers to some of life's most perplexing questions, and finally give up, quiet and accepting in the Holy Face of Mystery. We think we are meant to grow to adult maturity, yet we discover gradually that maturity means regaining the simplicity, freedom, humility, and inner peace of children.
Ecclesiastes continues, " God has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into human beings' hearts, without their discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done." The timeless in our hearts is God's own hidden, humble Presence, our first taste of eternity, which remains like a constant sun through all the changes we endure. God's Presence reminds us that we were created for eternity and that every moment of time is preparation for the timeless. Every experience can mold us anew, deepen faith, hope, and love in our hearts, cause us to reach even more quickly for our Savior's hand to walk with us and guide us along the unknown path of every day.
Nothing or no-one stands still in our lives. Fragile, frail, short-lived, we travel life's journey through season after season, change after change. Yet God reassures us that no season, no change, no matter how devastating, is without purpose. Nothing is torn down, even our bodies, without there being a final new re-building and resurrection. If we trust in the Lord with all our hearts and revere and accept that Life is beautiful Holy Mystery, one day we will see our mysterious God Face to Face. Then God will reveal what we could only see through a glass darkly on earth: His own divine purposes for every season in our lives.