I love the fall; it is my favorite season of the year. This season for many is also an autumn of
perpetual tardiness with the rapid changing of schedules and arranging then rearranging of priorities. In this time of anxious delay, we may be concerned that our value is somehow tied to a clock or a calendar.
It is most certainly true friends in Christ that God ordered the weeks with day and night,
seasons, and the phases of the moon. It was, however, humans who named the days, numbered them, and created the clock of hours. We have created our own chain and restriction in which to
bind our lives to a purely relative construct which we have often solidly affixed to our person whether with a watch or a phone. We create our own anxieties by agreeing to times and places with other people, knowing full well it may be difficult to hold ourselves to such a standard. We too often place a great deal of our own self-worth on our ability to maintain a standard of
relative consistency to an already relative construct. These anxieties do not even mention the physiological stressors we manifest for ourselves by forcing our brains to wake in the dark of
the night- when after some hours of anxiety about said waking hour we have finally fallen asleep.
Certainly, one might conclude with all this that the watch maker is really quite mad. Yet, the season persists granting us full view through color and waning light that far more than a relative construct time does indeed order our lives as we scurry like squirrels to prepare for the winter.
So, what is one to do? The psalmist intercedes in a time of great stress for the people, imploring God to teach what it is to measure time as that which is spent discerning wisdom and giving
thanks for the days that have been given. Be at peace children of God, mindful of the time to be sure, but present in the hours we have they have been granted by God to us for purpose with opportunity for thanksgiving and praise. Let us order our days grateful for the tasks ahead with a heart of grace when our self-imposed constraints cause consternation of our souls. Remember, finally, that we are bound to God in their own time and season through Baptism rather than slave to the tick-tock of the passing hours.
There is great freedom in watching the watch of the season in the colors of the leaves and the
events of thanksgiving soon on the horizon.
Blessed autumn friends!
Pr. Erik