Message from the Rector

               

BALANCE

If there is a season of ‘balance,’ I would choose autumn.

Winter, with its blustery cold, its snow and ice, encourages us to hibernate, seek warmth by a cozy fire, eliciting no more excitement than what comes with browsing through seed catalogs. For me, it is a season for drawing inward, a season for introspection: reflection on the past, and planning for the future.

Spring is a season of anticipation and expectancy, filled with hope for all things new or renewed. Much is written about the emotions that come with trees in bud, last seasons’ perennials and herbs emerging. And the ultimate act of hope: planting a vegetable seed, leaving it to the vagaries of dirt and water and sun, and then trusting – just trusting. For me, this time also brings hope for renewed personal growth, reawakened spiritual growth, revived relationships and activities.

Summer is a season of contradiction. The months are hectic with travel and outdoor barbeques, tending the garden, weddings and graduation parties and celebrations. At the same time, it brings evenings on the porch with no more intention than enjoying a cold drink and chatting with neighbors as they pass.

But autumn … Harvest season overflows with fulfillment and wholeness; and the balance, often lacking in other seasons, returns. The seasons are finally integrated. Planning and anticipation, activity and languor finally come together, bringing a sense completeness and fullness and satisfaction, bringing a contented sense of perfect balance - in the rich colors of nature that explode all around us; and in our own, inner personal nature as well.

Winter planning, spring planting, summer tending … autumn reaping. Harvest – and balance - arrive in due season; bringing satisfaction of a job well done, a life well lived. The circle is rejoined, bringing contentment and strength as nature and life prepare to draw inward once again.

Joy comes in recognizing that in life all seasons are always present. Every day can be an opportunity to reflect and to plan. Each day, new seeds and new hopes can be planted. Each day is another chance to both work and to wait, tending and trusting in what we have already put in place. And with each day, a harvest is gathered in. Each morning ask yourself: “What seeds will I plant today? Where am I called to look back and gaze forward? What needs tending?” Each evening ask: “How abundantly or sparsely did I reap from what I sowed?”

May you sow quality seeds of faith and prayer, love and service, that your daily harvest may be plentiful and your autumn foliage bright. May each morning begin in the hope of spring; each day continue in a summer of pleasure and strength. May you know, in the autumn of each evening, wholeness and contentment. And just before your eyes close to enter the winter of night, may you experience a sense of life’s balance.

 

 

                                                                                  --Keith Marsh