A Time to Every Season

 

Hayter for January 22, 2023

“After the pain went away, I saw the light.”

          I’m not a fan of pain. Oh, there have been times when I wished I was too sick to go to school, work, or church. I don’t need excuses for the first two of those anymore, but I can still conger up dread on a Sunday morning.

I must assume that there are preachers who, on occasion, wish they were too sick to go to church. It doesn’t mean they’re going to hell in a basket. It means that most of them are human.

But, let’s get away from church. I mean the topic of church. If you’re in church now, stay there. And, if you are there now, what the sam hill are you doing reading the newspaper? Mom would pinch my leg so hard!

But, forget Mom and forget church if you can. It’s “pain” that caused this article to happen. For the last two weeks, I’ve had some barbed, calcified, stones in my kidneys trying to exit through too-narrow an opening. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, because it’s happened several times in the past and, given time, will happen again.

          My recent bout with kidney stones caused me to think about the lyrics to Pete Seeger's song “Turn, Turn, Turn”, a song made popular by the Byrds. While Seeger wrote the tune, he borrowed the lyrics from Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8, a book credited to Solomon. I thought Solomon showed kindness in not suing Seeger for borrowing his lyrics without permission.

          Chapter three starts with the words “To everything, there is a season and time for every purpose under heaven.”  The rest of the book is depressing as all get-out. A good friend of mine, John Meridith, told me that it is his favorite book in the Bible.

John was a hippy back in the day, so I thought perhaps he was still influenced by his experiences in college. How could he find appreciation in the writings of the wisest man on the planet, a person who wrote things like, “For I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was distressing to me, for everything is futility and striving after wind.” -- Try to dance to that tune.

It was my most recent ‘stint” with constant pain, that caused me to recall the thoughts of the supposed wisest, richest person in the world. The thought of Solomon has never crossed my mind while in pain. But, this morning? This morning, my pain was gone, and I sensed only the good things in life. I knew that Kay really loves me because she did all she could to make things easier for me… except for letting me swallow my entire bottle of pain pills

In Ecclesiastes, Solomon confessed that, though he had been the richest and most respected person in the world, a person with 1000-plus women at his beck and call, a person with the greatest chefs, the most beautiful palaces, and people lined up to listen to whatever he had to say.

Yet no matter how much he may have wished to stay, Solomon left the building and, he said, that “his spirit returned to God, Who gave it to him. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!”

That’s one whale of a message to leave behind. What are we supposed to do with that? Solomon didn’t give any specific suggestions. He merely stated what he considered to be a fact of life. Well, this morning, what his “fact” did was cause me to think about two particular friends of mine.

Tracy Cross, Kay’s younger brother, was born with what is known as brittle bone disease. At the age of one, the kid broke his leg by sitting down on his dad’s foot. Over the years, he went from a wheelchair to a walker, to another wheelchair. There is no telling how many times the guy went to sleep in tears.

I wrote an article about him recently. The kid had the greatest sense of humor of anyone I’ve ever known. He was a lead guitarist in several bands. He was kind, well-loved, and caring.

A couple of years back, he died at the age of 68, as a result of COVID. He was God’s gift to so many. I loved him dearly and miss him a bunch. And Kay is still participating in grief share classes as a result of his passing. In a couple of generations, Tracy will be forgotten. But, I believe that God’s purpose for him continues in the lives of friends and relatives who were indirectly guided by his example.

The second person, I choose to mention is John Meredith, my friend who, unbeknownst to him, got me to thinking about Ecclesiastes early this morning. John interpreted one of the last verses in chapter three of the book, in a way that I never grasped until now. Solomon wrote “I have seen that there is nothing better than for a person to enjoy his activities (in life) because that is his reward. For who can enable him to see what will happen after he dies?”

The activity my friend apparently enjoys most in life, is getting involved in helping people. He is the kindest, most active, most benevolent person I know. He’s been recognized in local newspapers throughout the county.

Pete Seeger started “Turn, Turn, Turn, off with the first verse of chapter three. -- “To everything, there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven…”

John read, what I considered to be one of the most depressing books in the bible, and came to the conclusion that one of his purposes in life was to help others. Without a doubt, I am continually blessed by the inspiration that both of them continue to provide to me.

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