A Concord Pastor Comments: Monday Morning Offering: 8/28

(Labor Day, still a week away, is neither the end of warm days nor the actual beginning of fall. Still, in American culture, so many things begin to change as August ends and a new school year begins. I've posted this prayer several times before, I hope you agree it's deserving of an annual appearance!)

Good morning, good God!

As the sun sets earlier each evening,
Labor Day's horizon eclipsing these august days,
I'm wondering, Lord:
why must good times come to an end?

Good times come too seldom
(or so it often seems)
and when they do they're here but briefly
- and then too quickly gone...

And as wonderful as memories are,
they are but memories:
nothing more - and nothing less...

Why, Lord, must good times
come to an end?
Why are memories not enough?
Why is promise of the fall's leaf-filtered beauty
not enough today to surrender
summer’s warmth and pace and peace?

Of seasons there are four, they say,
but I know a hundred seasons more
and just in my life alone:
seasons of peace, seasons of pain;
seasons of sadness, seasons of gain;
seasons of sunlight, seasons of rain;
seasons of comfort, seasons of strain;
seasons of planting, seasons of grain;
seasons of waiting for a season to come
to break the seasons’ chain…

So many seasons, Lord…

And letting go of summer is not easy…

I know I should be grateful for the fall:
your gentle preparation
of everyone and everything
for the dying
winter always brings...

Still, letting go of summer is not easy...

You know the seasons better than I
and no season changes, Lord,
around me or within me,
but that you know first
how those very changes
will change me...

Be with me, Lord,
in all the seasons of my life
and in the in-betweens
when moving from one season to the next
is itself another season to abide...

Help me bide the summer's passing on,
its slipping from the calendar,
and from my nights and days...

Take my offered heart
and open me to all the changes
in the weeks and months ahead…

Make me gentle with the season's change
and with the hearts of those around me,
those whose paths cross mine today...

I offer you my seasoned heart
for you're the source of all the strength I need
to live this day and every day this week
edging now towards Labor Day,
a season's near debut...

Be my trusted guide, Lord,
and walk me from the summer into fall,
walk me through this season’s change
and the seasons changing in my soul...

Amen.