A friend is a few weeks away from knee surgery, so this season finds her sitting on the bench today, but her new knee new season will be SO MUCH better soon… she will await the next season with anticipation. she has been reminded, like us, to number our days.

Like the old advice says, you CAN do everything, have everything, in life, but NOT necessarily all at once.

This also means to appreciate the season of your life now. Don’t let the coldness of the past keep you from enjoying today.

Sometimes seasons switch from spring-sprung to barely peeping. Snowdrops then the tulip trees as well as forsythia and daffodils. Next slice of the season will be flowering quinces – and this year they will be BEAUTIFUL because I didn’t overtrim the bushes at the wrong time last year. Yes, we need to know how to prepare for the next season. If the flowering quinces know when to bloom, when to fruit, and when to leaf-out, so can we. They have a cycle, they have seasons. Us too, like Joni Mitchell sings. A Carousel of Time, in The Circle Game… we can grab what seems to be a fast up and down horse or the stationary seat while on the ride of life, but the carousel will turn and move us at the same speed each time. It’s our time perception that changes. We realize at the end of the ride that we wish it were longer, or we spend the whole ride trying to win a brass ring for another ride that we forget to enjoy the ride we are on.

Our job is to realize which season we are in now and bloom OR spread our leaves, OR harden down for winter, or plant for summer… No one said you can’t do things off season, but it’s best to be IN SEASON with where you are now. Pick up on cues and clues….

Especially realizing earthly life’s being just a small slice of forever life hopefully makes us appreciate the beauty of the moment AND the OPPORTUNITY of the moment.

Opportunity, that is what the religious leaders of the time squandered in Jesus’s time. They were too busy to realize they were out of season and certainly were not watching for the next season. Simeon at the temple knew Jesus as Messiah as the baby approached, but all of Israel did not. They were stuck in their dry season. Jesus cursed a fig tree for not being in bloom, the symbolism is of Israel not being fruitful when they could have known the Messiah was on His Way.  We are also to know that Jesus is on His Way to us any cloud now. We are to be in current season ready, to bear fruit or use our harvest, and to prepare for the next season. Our preparation now will let fruits of this season benefit those in the next.

What can we know about today? That we are to make the most of it. Jesus also taught that if we ask in His name, we can move mountains.

Jesus also said: when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Like the old advice says, you CAN do everything, have everything, in life, but not necessarily all at once. Let us appreciate our life now. Let us not get stuck in last season but spring into life, one blossom at a time. Let us forgive to be forgiven. Forgiveness is the soil softening and soul softening we need all in one. All in One, due to One, our Lord.

Let us bear fruit in faithfulness and trust God to not only bring us thru this season, but prepare us for the next.

Amen

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Mark 11:12-21, 22-25 Jesus Curses a Fig Tree and Clears the Temple Courts

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”

Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.  Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

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A Circle Game, Joni Mitchell

Yesterday a child came out to wander

Caught a dragonfly inside a jar

Fearful when the sky was full of thunder

And tearful at the falling of a star

…

And the seasons, they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return, we can only look

Behind, from where we came

And go round and round and round, in the circle game

…

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons

Skated over ten clear frozen streams

Words like, “When you’re older” must appease him

And promises of someday make his dreams

…

And the seasons, they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return, we can only look

Behind, from where we came

And go round and round and round, in the circle game

…

16 springs and 16 summers gone now

Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town

And they tell him, “Take your time, it won’t be long now

‘Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down”

…

And the seasons, they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return, we can only look

Behind, from where we came

And go round and round and round, in the circle game

…

So the years spin by and now the boy is 20

Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true

There’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty

Before the last revolving year is through

…

And the seasons, they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return, we can only look

Behind, from where we came

And go round and round and round, in the circle game

And go round and round and round, in the circle game