Article 1 - “TO ALL THINGS A SEASON, ALL THINGS A MEANING” June 2006 edition of First Church of The Streets

    The sun rises, the sun sets. A day begins, and then it ends. The flow of life has its rhythm, whether one pays attention to it or not. It is as though all things were created with a place, and a time.

    But certainly it is easy to think it isn't so in the world. Things speed up, ships and planes get bigger and bigger, and life can be a realm of chaos, even with date planners dictating every move until five years from now. To everything a time and a season, as long as I can squeeze it in the half hour between the gym and the dog's vet appointment and there's no traffic jam.

    The busier life becomes, the harder to sense the rhythm and flow life is. And despite all the "useful" activity, it may seem so mindless that despite all the day planners, it's easy to forget what happened yesterday. Since it's so easy to forget about, did it have any meaning? Does it matter that I did five loads of laundry or is it so important that the guy over there answered sixty e-mails? Try to prioritize, and yet that would somehow imply that some of the stuff I was doing was useless, and I wasted my time.

    Maybe the problem is all the busyness. Maybe, if there was less junk clogging up the channels of life, what is really important makes itself known. At the very least, it then becomes more evident why somebody might do something to begin with. And then, in the quiet, perhaps some type of truth can come through: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts.." (Eccl. 3:11).

    This comes on the heel of the poetry that has inspired the Byrds, on the realization that everything has its place, and its time. So what happens first, does one realize that everything has its place, or realizing that one's truth is inside oneself? Does it matter, or perhaps, in the ebb and flow of life, one person may find truth by looking within, while for another, seeing the beauty of flow in the external? Maybe it is much as though some people find peace in nature, others in the excitement of a crowd. To each, his/ her own, to everything a season.

    Maybe in the long run, all things have meaning once a person discovers truth inside, however that person may define it. And this could be an important thing to embrace, for some person may discover the ebb and flow and life in one culture, while another person, another culture. This is touchy material, indeed, as some people feel making truth an individual journey will lead to moral relativism, or perhaps even pure anarchy. Maybe those people are right. Maybe their concerns are part of the truth that they have been led to. For: "Who knows the spirit of men, which goes upward?....who can bring him to see what will happen after him?" (Eccl 3: 21).

    Perhaps there is one main ingredient needed to see the rhythms of life: spirit. To the evangelical Christian, this word could raise a challenge, for spirit means more than one thing to this person. To an atheist or agnostic, this word can also raise challenge, because it conjures images of a deity that one can't acknowledge.

    No matter. Maybe the important thing is to see that life is more than the individual parts, more than the small things that seem to take up so much time in everyday life. The point of life, in a way, is life itself. In that respect, anything that leads to an increase of that realization is important in meaning, no matter how useless it may look on a resume or a life that is intended to Get Ahead, whatever that means.

    "To everything there is a season...whatever God does, it shall be forever" (Eccl 3: 1, 14).