haul out day

I am an advocate of seasonal change... Although I know this could change, right now I am aware of a feeling of excitement at the transition point between each season.... Why, today in the midst of a spectacular Autumn Day (Indian Summer? Perhaps.... although I know we will get the real Indian Summer Autumn's mid point) I revelled in the color and warmth of Sandusky Bay.... as I (here's the day's teeter/totter) took my sailboat to the marina for haulout and winter storage.

I guess you can't fully understand the tenderness of that experience unless you are a boater or a sailor... but trust me... haul out day is a day that is both the best and the worst. It is the best because if everything goes smoothly, you end the day with your craft tucked away safely... all the gear is in storage... and you have a general idea of what off-season chores will spice up your winter. (yes, boating chores in the middle of the winter are sheer delight!!!!!)

But it is also the worst.... because that last voyage across the bay is often one that you want to package up... the wind in your hair, the seagulls and cormorants diving and swooping... the exhilerating frangrance of the unbriney blue....the unmatched cloud display of water's edge meeting sky.

Yep... it is the shift of the season... and I am truly ok with it. Maybe it's because I was an impressionable 13 year old when the Byrds offered the popular

Turn, Turn, Turn.

Maybe it's because I pray regularly with the passage from Ecclesiastes 3:1-11....

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

Sometimes living (I mean, really living.... not just skating on the surface) with the ebb and flow of life can be like those childhood days when we would walk back and forth on a teeter totter, playing with balance and with the way our shifting weight could make the plank totter downward...



It's rare time allows us to stay in the middle for very long... where things are either perfectly perfect (or perfecly awful).... Yep... things are always changing.. and the wonderful thing is that wherever I am on the continuum I can experience "balance" by returning to the center... God's presence... God's understanding of all that I am experiencing in any day...any season.

Where are you these days... I know you are in Autumn, at least if you live in the western hemisphere... But really, what time is it for you?

Turn, turn, turn... to the Lord.

Peace!