The seasons are changing. I love living in a part of the world where there is fluctuation in temperature and daylight hours throughout the year. When sun’s out, fun’s out – I adore summer days and balmy evenings round the fire pit with friends. And I also love crisp, frosty mornings and cosy, hygge nights reading by candlelight after the nights have drawn in.
As September begins, I have observed that the change in season between summer and autumn is perhaps the most pronounced in the calendar. For those with any contact with the education system – teachers, parents or students alike – there is a new term with shiny new shoes and fresh rhythms and timetables. At the outset of the ninth month, perhaps more than the first, we find our insatiable desire for novelty satisfied.
And yet, in a change of season, we can be so fixated on what is to come that we forget to grieve what has passed. For most of us July and August contain joyful rest, family days spent with sand between toes, ice cream smiles and fuller lungs in a breathless world. As the calendar flips, these days are done. The pace will quicken. We must look forward. But do not miss the moment to let your heart linger a little. Treasure the memories of the summer and look back wistfully before stepping forward into the unknown.
Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach.
I feel it in the air. The summer’s out of reach.
I love Don Henley’s evocative lament of the end of this season. Consider the images that reflect their passing. The end of my summers, past and present, are represented by memories of the wake left by a ferry pulling away from the port of a Scottish island, the long driveway away from a summer camp, and lately, the exit barrier of our favourite French campsite. The picture of the road ahead from this place has become iconic as a gateway from one season to the next.
These past months have been wetter than we would have liked. Whatever they have brought you reflect well on their ending. To do so is wise. To do so is human. But it is also Godly.
I’ve heard many a talk on God doing a new thing. We reflect well on he who instigates new beginnings. But he is also the God of endings. He is Omega as well as Alpha. And in doing so, he demonstrates another expression of his authority and power. The one who calls time exerts sovereignty and dominion. So as one chapter closes for each of us and the winds change, let us grieve, treasure and reflect. But let us also revere the one who holds time in his hands.
Here’s to the God of endings as well as the God of beginnings.
To the God of the end credits and additional time.
To the finisher as well as the starter.
He is one always doing new things, but he is also Omega.
The God who calls ‘Time gentlemen please.’
‘That’s all folks.’
‘It is finished.’
The end.
