To Every Thing There is a Season

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose unto heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

If the end of verse two is true, it actually feels like I spend an exorbitant amount of my time plucking up that which is not actually planted. Weeds. Symbolic of every thing in the world that does not belong, I yank the weeds out, even to the point of tiring my wrist. Determination overrides the pain button. Maybe if I could just have a moment of weedless dominion, sovereignty of the domain of my own kingdom (my yard), things would be right with the whole world, not just my little three-quarters of an acre. Alas, the weeds will always be with us.

It’s an perpetual exercise in optimism, to see the flowers over the weeds. As the title of this whole blog site implies, to me, the garden is a metaphor for life. This summer I have prioritized removing volunteers. For the first time in 21 years, I’m digging out ferns and throwing them in the compost. Order over chaos. I simply don’t have time to replant or give away every misplaced overly enthusiastic youngster, no matter how sacred. I’m setting boundaries. Establishing borders. True compassion sets limits.

I know the first part of verse two is true. We are in a bit of a season of death. This week my cousin Jimmy died. And yesterday my Dad’s brother Jim, my uncle, died. Because Uncle Jim was a Vietnam veteran and a cancer survivor and the only man alive with the same DNA as my father, I guess I thought he was unstoppable. The totals? This year we lost Bill’s mom, cousin Jill, Aunt Kathy (Daddy’s sister), Uncle Jim all on my dad’s side, and cousin Jimmy on my mom’s side.

And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labor, it is the gift of God. Verse 13. . .

Yesterday that meant finishing off the peach crisp all by myself, spending too much at the Nordstrom sale, and drinking a little more than one beer upon arrival to the Little Pines Lodge. We also said goodbye to dear friends moving to Wisconsin yesterday. It was a tough day.

Today is a new day. I’ll write more about the Jims another time. Suffice it to say with cousin Jimmy no one ever said, “I wish I was estranged from more of my relatives, yes, that it how it should be.” Life is a tangled web that carries on from generation to generation.

A time to get, and a time to lose; Verse 6

We got all the God-blessed suitcases back from the debacle in Europe. Perhaps you saw news flashes of the strikes and labor shortages. If you zoomed in, you might have seen Janel’s and Mary’s suitcases in the photos of thousands of lost bags. Last night at 9:00 p.m., in a heroic moment at the Minneapolis International Baggage Claim, Mary snagged Janel’s bag from a mystery cart which had arrived on a unknown flight from Paris. We texted her to take the bag and run. I waited outside door 4 in the getaway car amidst four lanes of backed up airport traffic. Retrieving the two bags, actually three because Mary’s bag was lost on the way to Amsterdam as well, took three of us untold man-hours. I had hours on hold with Delta, and Air France, I am now personal friends with the Air France phone baggage guy despite our language barrier. Bill had trips to the airport and many intimate moments with the Delta phone app. In the end, it was nothing less than divine intervention. We just happened to show up three times at the airport when our actual bags were arriving.

A time to rend, and a time to sew; Verse 7

This is the closest I could get to a metaphor for the repair of our 2007 Chrysler 300. At the end of their road trip. Bill and Calvin hit a porcupine in Wyoming. Not a bison. Not an elk. Not a bear or even a deer. A porcupine, may he rest In peace, or more likely pieces. In a series of unfortunate events this totaled the hemi eight cylinder engine of the stalwart made-of-steel car. As of Friday night, it is fixed, after a journey home from Wyoming involving friends and family and let’s just face it, a heck of a lot of cash. Probably if the car could talk, there would be some very dramatic stories.

A time to break down, a time to build up; Verse 3

We are coming to the close of a year of house repairs. Thursday the painter was here for the last time. I swear, Bill. Time breaks down, and so does the sun and so do the woodpeckers. It takes carpenters to build back up. Our twenty-one year old home is taken care of. This is a good job done, to take care of what we have.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; Verse 4

I’m starting to plan the studio year, we are going to do another concerto event May 20 at Sundin Hall. I’m going to take care of my seniors, the high-school one, and the college one. And my piano kids. That’s all. Then, as an empty nester I will write my book. To every thing there is a season.