Mid-week Message
from our Developmental Lead Minister
October 20,2022
“For everything, there is a season. . .” Ecclesiastes 3:1
Friends,
In recent years, I’ve found myself wanting to hold on to whatever season is ending. On the cusp of spring, I’m not ready to let go of winter, on the cusp of summer, I’m not ready to let go of spring – and so on through the cycle of the year. Here it is mid-October, well into autumn, and I’m finally ready to let go of summer. What this tells me is that I have come to appreciate every season rather than waiting breathlessly for that one favorite season to arrive as I did when I was a kid, when summer could never come too soon or stay too late.
I think there is something very human about wanting to hold on. To hold on is to be in control while letting go means, well, it means the opposite of being in control: to surrender, to be vulnerable. And, of course, wanting to hold on and actually being able to hold on are two different things. It’s literally impossible to hold on to a season. It’s going to change whether I want it to or not.
Life is like that, isn’t it? The inevitability of change is the name of the game. With change comes loss. There will never be another summer like the one just passed. There will never be another fall like the one we are in. Each season soon slips into the past.
There’s also something very human about our tendency toward nostalgia, that sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past. It’s another way of holding on, trying to keep things from changing.
Yet, here we are in the midst of another fall. The trees are letting go of their leaves. Hours of sunlight are yielding to the ever-lengthening night. The pace of change in the world around us these days is breathtaking. Change is the name of the game.
This season invites us to explore our own relationship with holding on and letting go. Where do you find yourself holding on? What would it be like to let go?
Yours in shared ministry,
Rev. Diane