Sunday, March 23 - Third Sunday in Lent

As the finite nature of human life comes more clearly into focus, the words of sages in times past fall into a cadence or rhythm all their own.

The words from Ecclesiastes tell us “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Here are a few examples:

A time to be born and a time to die

A time to weep and a time to laugh

A time to mourn and a time to dance

The poet C. A. Schlea writes about a “Fifth Season.” In his poem he comments on the stages of life as they relate to the seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. However, he doesn’t end it there. Schlea introduces hope, comfort and renewal in the final stanzas of his poem as follows:

“But with the passing of these seasons, life is still not done, not through, for there is yet another season when each spirit is renewed. And it is in this calm fifth season, in this hopeful second spring, a time of cleansing and rebirth, a time of new awakening, each person’s life will come full circle, even as the seasons do, to start another different life much better than the one we knew.”

Schlea does not mention God or Jesus anywhere in the poem, however, for all who recognize that it is purely “by the Grace of God” that we enjoy the privilege of life, RESURRECTION leaps from the page.

Joe Beckett