"Tis the season!" was said over and over during December.
"To everything there is a season. ..." said the wise one in ancient Holy Scripture (and wrote Pete Seeger nearly six decades ago).
"Four Seasons" describes many things from a hotel chain to a symphony by Vivaldi.
Aside from a term for spices, season is mostly used in two ways related to time. One describes a unique span of time, like "This year our team will win the championship," or Steinbeck's "Winter of Our Discontent." The other describes a recurring period of time like the annual parade of seasons that come and go one after the other _ good, bad or otherwise _ like it or not.
It's hard to do much about repeating seasons, about the fact that they will keep coming and going.
There's good news and bad news in an on-going cycle. If this is a bad winter, it too shall pass. And if it is a great spring, it too shall pass. Seasons come and seasons go _ in nature, in baseball, in our lives _ year after year.
We often have more control about unique seasons: this semester at school, this spring training, this new job or time of retirement. It may be just another spring (ho hum), or it may be claimed to be my springtime of renewal. My preacher encouraged our congregation to approach or welcome 2020 with openness; openness to what may come or what may become as a result of my and our actions.
Indeed, we can actively engage a given season, or we can passively let it unfold bit by bit. Or perhaps the better way is to do some of both.
I think that's the sage counsel of the well-known "Serenity Prayer" of Reinhold Neibuhr, modified and widely used by 12-Steppers and others: "Grant me (this season) the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
We are given opportunities and face constraints in every unique season and across the cycles of seasons that roll along unending.
Psychologist Jutta Heckhausen and others describe primary and secondary ways to manage what life throws at you. Primary control in this season of your life might refer to how you act to change your world to fit your needs or desires _ your external behaviors _ and what you make of what you are given. Secondary control in this season might refer to how you react to minimize losses or manage failures or setbacks. It is about your internal behaviors _ how you cope with or accept what you can't control.
In the 19th century, believers on both sides of the Civil War used to write home about "having a season of prayer," by which they meant a time to come aside from battle and focus on their common God. Did it make a difference then? Does it make a difference now in this season of life?
I say, 'tis the season to pray again ... and again ... and again.
