The Four Seasons of Human Endeavour

THERE’S A TIME FOR EVERYTHING under the Sun, the writer of Ecclesiastes said, and so it is for us, though we hate the concept, especially as we plunge into the darker, stormier “seasons” of life. We’re okay in the spring, not so in winter; though all seasons are necessary. The four seasons are an ideal metaphor for growth, change and adaptation. Let’s get on-board and welcome them all.

THE FOUR SEASONS OF HUMAN ENDEAVOUR

Winter – A Season for Quiet and Retreat

We all have times of need and of quiet and reflection. Going into our shells at these times, be they depressions or joyful meditations, or any range between, is not only necessary from a stability sense, it’s life-giving also. These times are regenerative. Perhaps it’s during loss and grief, we’ll suddenly find ourselves in the most hellish winter.

Aggressive blizzards of the heart contort experience as we clamour each second. When we don’t give up and keep putting one foot in front of the other, we’ll eventually find the extremities abating. We fall graciously, surrendering, into spring.

Spring – A Season of New Life

The quieter time gives way to new life in two ways; this is routinely and eventually. We have springs of the day and seasons of spring. Both are pertinent. There is new life at the thought level; the creative. There is new life that also sustains us for months, a year or two on end. Recovery is like this; slowly we climb out of the mire. New life beckons and we, of course, welcome same.

[The routine and eventual nature of the seasons applies to all the seasons, of course, not just spring. It explains our daily mood and our good years from our bad.]

Summer – A Season for Growth

This is what we’re talking about! Progressing through the seasons in growth we hit summer. Longer days allow more opportunity and we’re primed for more. Every morning we wake to the excited gait—the heart already expectant—a mood of exploration and tenacity abounds.

Growth is extension. It pushes the previously conceived boundaries and we morph in many unpredictable, but entirely good, directions. Like a summer lawn requiring the mower every other week, we’re set for abundance—our very purpose.

Autumn – A Season of Abundance

Encore! For all the hard work moving ahead through the preceding seasons—of careful track plots through the necessary pain and discomfort of development—we arrive finally at the time for abundance.

We look back and can see with the benefit of hindsight the reaping reality of faith—that we trusted in during the tough times. It’s the time when our trees bear good fruit and we necessarily have much power, position and poise for the destiny we were made for.

We arrive, for such a time as this!

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.

Acknowledgement for the ‘Four Season’ naming Structure: Christine Sine, To Garden With God (Seattle, Washington: Mustard Seed Associates, 2009). Retrieved 7 February 2010. http://msainfo.org/promo/to-garden-with-god-manual-spirituality-of-gardening