With the temperature hovering close to 70° both day and night, where we are spending time with our daughter for Christmas week, and later some other good friends in this huge state, and looking into the Weather Channel app for when we return to Denver, where on that 4th day of 2017 it is suggested the high temp will be 19°, we are going to soak up all the warm we can. The change of seasons, anywhere, is necessary for the continuation of life, whether the climatic change is severe or slight over the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, seasons of a year.
We humans, too, go through seasons, not just aging. A cherished book I often take down from my book shelf lined with the wisdom of poets is one by Ted Loder titled Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle.
Since here in the Northern Hemisphere winter is now officially upon us, whether it’s 70° or 19°, wherever you may be, here is Loder’s take on the arrival of the winter season from his past Philadelphia, PA perspective:
Grant Me Your Sense of Timing…
O God of all seasons and senses,
grant me your sense of timing
to submit gracefully
and rejoice quietly
in the turn of seasons.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of gray and white and cold
teach me the lessons of waiting:
of the snow joining the mystery
of the hunkered-down seeds
growing in their sleep
watched over by gnarled-limbed, grandparent trees
resting from autumn’s staggering energy;
of the silent, whirling earth
circling to race back home to the sun.
O God, grant me your sense of timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of gray and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of endings:
children growing,
friends leaving,
jobs concluding,
stages finishing,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over,
O God, grant me your sense of timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of gray and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of beginnings:
that such waitings and endings
may be a starting place,
a planting of seeds
which bring to birth
what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song,
a deeper relationship,
a fuller love—
in the fullness of your time.
O God, grant me your sense of timing.
...the dawning of a new day, and year...with possibilities...
...Friday...30Dec16...
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