There, too, Life and Death
Our devotional writings today encourage us to look at the world around us with resurrection eyes. They open our hearts to the cycles of nature around us, to the seasons of death and rebirth, and to the work of the harvest, happening now. May these words open our eyes to the faith reaffirmed in each and every life on earth and to God’s abundance recreated in every harvest season.
There is a time for everything …
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will be in awe of him.
Whatever is has already been,
and what will be has been before;
and God will call the past to account.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-15, 20
As I watch’d the ploughman ploughing
As I watch’d the ploughman ploughing,
Or the sower sowing in the fields—or the harvester harvesting,
I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies:
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)
Walt Whitman
And, lastly, these words were shared by Jesus in one of his final public appearances before his crucifixion and resurrection, according to the Gospel of John.
Let Life Go
“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.
John 12:24-25
A Blessing for Your Week
Beloved Child of God,
May the metaphors of God
Appear to you in the mundanity of life
May they speak to you
Of life through death
Of hope through loss
Of faith through decay
May this world envelop you
In the loving abundance of the Harvest
And may time bring
Each cycle
In its season
In its rhythm
In its turn
Amen.
Rev. Kelsey Sherazi 