Seasons

Recently I spent a week visiting family in Texas.  As I pulled out of my driveway to make the trek I took a good look at the flaming red maple in our front yard, on fire with color illuminating the season.  I was sad when I returned several days later to see that almost every leaf from the tree was gone.  A powerful wind came through one day and stripped the tree of its Fall beauty.  

It left me anxious for a future autumn. 

Fall is drawing closer to an end and the beauty of this quarterly season has once again provided our eyes and souls with natural art.  It has me thinking about each season the year brings, and how each season has a beauty of its own.  

Very much like the seasons of our lives. 

SPRING

As the temperatures of winter begin to warm into Spring, new buds on trees, new green hues in the grass, and new flowers emerge as from a long slumber. It reminds me of new birth.   It reminds me of being young, and having your whole life ahead of you. 

We are always in such a hurry to move on from this place in our lives and often miss the real beauty of youth --- and new beginnings.  Education.  Marriage.  Children.  And many firsts.  There is an energy and a youthful vigor that we often don’t appreciate until our lives are in a new season.  Spring has its own beauty. 

SUMMER

During Summer the Spring has done its work and now everything is in full bloom and fruitful.  This is the prime of our lives when we have in many ways reached a destination.  Our careers are in full swing.  Our philosophy and worldview has solidified.  We have grown and matured and begin to notice the beauty of a life we have treated like a race, and we long to simply stop and smell the proverbial roses.  Summer has its own beauty.  It is in many ways the graduation of Spring. 

    

FALL

Fall is a little like Spring in that it is a transitional period.  Summer warmth does not immediately become Winter’s cold.  There is this beautiful period of the year when summer has come to an end but winter is still not upon us.

Isn't it interesting that the leaves are the most beautiful when they are in the last stages of  life?  They take on a beauty that the most fruitful summer can only envy.  We human beings have this transitional phase.  We have raised our children, and now begin to think about how we will spend the rest of our lives. 

As a parent I weep with joy and also loss at photos of the Spring time of our marriage, having our children, building a home.  And as much as I long for the Spring, I am looking forward to the beauty that the next phase of our lives will bring.  Fall is beautiful. 

WINTER

Winter can be cold.  Winter can bring lots of difficulty to a life.  As we reach this stage of existence the colorful leaves have been cast off, the grass has died, and the year has run its course for vibrant vegetation.  Winter may not be my favorite season, but it certainly has its own beauty. 

I remember taking that long Texas trip a few years ago in the early days of winter. Leaving very early in the morning I arrived at the edge of the Flint Hills just after sunrise.  The Flint Hills certainly have their own beauty, as the prairie contributes its unique brand of artistry.  The green fields of Spring and the colorful flowers of Summer are truly missed when the landscape is nothing but… brown. However, the cold air that brings death to ground growth is the same catalyst for breathtaking beauty.

The temperatures reached freezing in the night and as I entered the Flint Hills the ground was covered in a sheet of ice as far as the eye could see.  Each blade of the tall grass was an individual icicle.  And as the sun peeked over the horizon the reflections in the ice were nothing short of enchanting.  In the death of winter I found life giving food for my soul.  The beauty on that plain would be envied by the other seasons if they were flesh and blood. 

In the winter cold a beauty emerges.  A lifetime of wisdom and gratitude, often marked with the effects of wintry loss, can rest in assurances that Spring will happen again.  Spring will come for their progeny, and for the soul of the life traveler making tracks in the snow.