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Changing seasons through Lent
This month Bishop Lee invites us to embrace Lent as a time for necessary endings so we can truly experience God’s new beginnings.
Over the past 6 months the opening verses of chapter 3 from the Book of Ecclesiastes have regularly been in my mind:
1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
Those who are old enough might recognise the words from a song popularised by The Byrds in the 1960s: Turn! Turn! Turn! For Christians these weeks of Lent provide a hinge between the seasons of winter and spring and an opportunity for making necessary endings and creating new beginnings.
In his book entitled ‘Necessary Endings’, the clinical psychologist, business consultant and theologian Henry Cloud refers to the tasks that a farmer needs to be about during the winter season – when everything has died or ceased growing. He includes getting the books in order, squaring accounts with lenders, repairing equipment and getting it ready, preparing fields, reviewing the successes and failures of the past year and making changes for the year in prospect.
By contrast, the spring is a time for gathering seeds, deciding which fields will be worked and which left, ensuring there are sufficient resources to get through the year, doing the sowing and planting, protecting seedlings from damage by the weather or pests, and nurturing a vision of the harvest to come.
These are separate seasons with distinct tasks.
Though fewer of us are now engaged in farming or agriculture, the images run deep and have metaphorical as well as physical resonance. We recognise different seasons in our own life, or the life of our communities or in businesses.
This month Bishop Lee invites us to embrace Lent as a time for necessary endings so we can truly experience God’s new beginnings.
Over the past 6 months the opening verses of chapter 3 from the Book of Ecclesiastes have regularly been in my mind:
1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
Those who are old enough might recognise the words from a song popularised by The Byrds in the 1960s: Turn! Turn! Turn! For Christians these weeks of Lent provide a hinge between the seasons of winter and spring and an opportunity for making necessary endings and creating new beginnings.
In his book entitled ‘Necessary Endings’, the clinical psychologist, business consultant and theologian Henry Cloud refers to the tasks that a farmer needs to be about during the winter season – when everything has died or ceased growing. He includes getting the books in order, squaring accounts with lenders, repairing equipment and getting it ready, preparing fields, reviewing the successes and failures of the past year and making changes for the year in prospect.
By contrast, the spring is a time for gathering seeds, deciding which fields will be worked and which left, ensuring there are sufficient resources to get through the year, doing the sowing and planting, protecting seedlings from damage by the weather or pests, and nurturing a vision of the harvest to come.
These are separate seasons with distinct tasks.
Though fewer of us are now engaged in farming or agriculture, the images run deep and have metaphorical as well as physical resonance. We recognise different seasons in our own life, or the life of our communities or in businesses.