in & out of season

More than a year after I've begun this blog, and after several people have asked me to explain the name, I am finally going to get it written out so that I can "refer" people to this entry when they ask.

One of my delights in life is the four seasons. It's also a reason why I've enjoyed the three places I've lived (Ontario, Nebraska, Sendai). I especially feel that the Japanese are keenly aware of the seasons and have preserved the distinct nature of each season in their art, music, food and culture. Growing up in Ontario, in the heartland of fruit farming, my memories are filled of joining my mother and aunt in picking the fruit of the season to be cooked, preserved or eaten fresh. While Autumn is my favorite season, and Summer my least favorite, I do enjoy and value what God brings to us in each season. In Japan, while it feels like winter, we will technically enter the winter season next week.

Philosophically speaking, we also talk about the "seasons of life", or the various seasons of our faith development. In a roundabout way, even a day reflects this pattern. As I write this entry, we are in the Autumn of the day. In my chronological and chronological faith life, I would be considered to be in the summer - though, we never know how many days we will live...so I don't really know. In my faith, I would consider myself to be in two other cycles. As a missionary in Japan, most of my work is tilling and planting seeds, or nurturing those seeds - a Spring and Summer. In the faith seasons connected to my personal relationship with Jesus, I would identify with a Summer or Autumn time of faith.

There are several passages in the Bible which also speak metaphorically or symbolically about seasons. There is the passage in Ecclesiastes where Solomon shares wisdom about "...a time and season for everything." The great missionary, Paul, also encourages his young friend, Timothy, to "...be prepared in and out of season..." with his knowledge and use of the gospel, and the relationship with Jesus that the gospel brings. These passages have taken on greater, deeper meaning as I get older - especially as a missionary, minister and friend.

When I was a high school student, our English teacher (who was one of the best teachers I've ever had!), Mr. Scott Miller, introduced us to a piece of literature, called "A Man For All Seasons", which tells the story of Sir Thomas More and his relationship to King Henry VIII of England. It was crucial to our faith development, as much as to our literary and historical understanding, because we joined More in facing the dilemma of choosing to put greater weight on the belief that God had given Henry lordship and authority, and therefore to obey and support Henry in his break from the Catholic church, or to put greater weight on his belief in God's revealed truth about the holiness of the gift of marriage and in the Christian family/community, for which we understand as the assigned meaning of "church". This story and it's implications have stuck with me these several years later.

Finally, one of my favorite hymns, "Father of Mercies", has a line in it's poetry which I treasure: "The rolling seasons as they move proclaim to all thy constant care." The seasons remind us of God's abiding presence, and that He is the Giver of All Good Gifts. Everything in our world needs the seasons to be as they are (whether it's 2 seasons, 4 seasons, 5 seasons...) in order to continue. The trees need the rest provided by the winter in order to respond to spring rains which produce blossoms and are pollinated by the bees and warmed by the summer sun so that we might harvest its fruit in the autumn. And so the cycle continues. And so God provides what we need.

This is a hodgepodge of ideas, but a brief explanation of my thinking and it reflects my life and what kind of person I want to be. While I'll never be an observer so widely recognized as Annie Dillard, I do believe that we learn much about ourselves as humans, about the world around us and about the God who has created it all and provides for us through the seasons.

Thus, the name "In & Out of Season" was given for this blog.