There Is a Season
Years ago, I was given an article that revolutionized my life and helped me in my forward walking. It’s an article filled with wisdom and I’ve often reread it. I thought you might enjoy reading a few snippets.
To Know As We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey
by Parker Palmer
Seasons is a wise metaphor for the movement of life, I think. It suggests that life is neither a battlefield nor a game of chance but something infinitely richer, more promising, more real. The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or the joy, the loss of the gain, the darkness or the light, but encourages us to embrace it all — and to find it all of it opportunities for growth.
“[Autumn] scatters the seeds that will bring new growth in the spring—and scatters them with amazing abandon.”
It scatters the seeds that will bring new growth in the spring—and scatters them with amazing abandon.
In a paradox, opposites do not negate each—they cohere in mysterious unity at the heart of reality. Deeper still, they need each other for health, as my body needs to breathe in as well as breathe out. But in a culture that prefers the ease of either-or thinking to the complexities of paradox, we have a hard time holding opposites together. We want light without darkness, the glories of spring and summer without the demands of autumn and winter—and the Faustian bargains we make fail to sustain our lives.
If I try to “make” a life that defies the diminishments of autumn, the life I end up with will be artificial, at best, and utterly colorless as well. But when I yield to the endless interplay of living and dying, dying and living, the life I am given will be real and colorful, fruitful and whole.
“Despite all appearances, of course, nature is not dead in winter—it has gone underground to renew itself and prepare for spring.”
WINTER
Despite all appearances, of course, nature is not dead in winter—it has gone underground to renew itself and prepare for spring. Winter is a time when we are admonished, and even inclined, to do the same for ourselves.
Until we enter boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives. But when we walk directly into them—protected from frostbite by the warm garb of friendship or inner discipline or spiritual guidance—we can learn what they have to teach us. Then we discover once again that the cycle of the seasons is trustworthy and life-giving, even in the most dismaying season of all.
“…if we want to save our lives, we cannot cling to them but must spend them with abandon.”
SPRING
Though spring begins slowly and tentatively, it grows with a tenacity that never fails to touch me. The smallest and most tender shoots insist on having their way.
The gift of life, which seemed to be withdrawn in winter, has been given once again, and nature, rather than hoarding it, gives it all away. There is another paradox here, known in all the wisdom traditions: if you receive a gift, you keep it alive not by clinging to it but by passing it along…if we want to save our lives, we cannot cling to them but must spend them with abandon.
“Summer is the season when all the promissory notes of autumn and winter and spring come due, and each year the debts are repaid with compound interest.”
SUMMER
Summer is the season when all the promissory notes of autumn and winter and spring come due, and each year the debts are repaid with compound interest. In summer, it is hard to remember that we had ever doubted the natural process, had ever ceded death the last word, had ever lost faith in the powers of new life. Summer is a reminder that our faith is not nearly as strong as the things we profess to have faith in — a reminder that for this single season, at least, we might cease our anxious machinations and give ourselves to the abiding and abundant grace of our common life.
Top Posts & Pages
