To every thing

This portion from Ecclesiastes always intrigues and delights me. I think because it is such a hard lesson for me. The lesson that I read from it being that there is a time for everything and that time is somehow set in motion not by me but by a greater force - the seasons, the heavens, or some other cosmic power. I just don’t like that. I want things to be on my timetable. This is the one thing I don’t like about reading, and perhaps the only thing I don’t like about reading: it is sequential and time-bound. It cannot be expedited. It cannot be bypassed. To read, I must just sit and read the words sequentially one after another. On one hand, that is deeply satisfying, on another, sometimes I want the information immediately and without the laborious process. I feel the same way about the time and the things that this passage reminds me of. There is a time for particular things and my job is not to master the time, not to make things happen on my own timetable, but to engage in the process. It’s an important lesson that I learn again and again and again. Each time resisting, but learning a little bit more. To every thing. . . .

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the 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;
a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away
a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.