A New Season

Last Tuesday when I was headed out the door to take the girls to swim, I grabbed a fleece jacket from the closet, the first time I’d done such a thing since early May.  It would be early evening before we were home, and the Maine nighttimes had become deliciously cool.

As we came out of the Boys&Girls club after the girls had showered and were glowing from the exercise and warm water, I pulled the jacket on and stuck my hands in the pockets, to find a handful of…something.  I jerked my hand out and then smiled.  Beans.  Pole bean seeds to be exact.  I hadn’t worn this jacket since I’d been planting last spring, and here it was dusky at 5:30, the light fading earlier each day as we head toward the winter solstice.

Once school starts and we settle into new schedules and new routines, it’s inevitable in our house that conversation occasionally turns to Christmas.  Sally wants company; she likes a houseful at the holidays.  Maggie is already making lists of what she wants to get people.  And of course, they are ruminating over what they want from Santa (they are still full-on believers).  The bean seed in my pocket reminded me of what got planted and what didn’t, things done and things left undone.  The garden is a riotous mess; my neat rows and best intentions of last spring are just memories.  As we come into fall and winter, everything around is an ambiguous mix of old and new: leaves are changing, plants are withering, the light is fading and the chill in the air encourages us to curl up, withdraw, settle in.  Yet there is newness: new school years, new friends, new projects and adventures.  Harvest time is a time of preparation, of processing food and setting in stores of wood (pellets, in our house) and the things we need for winter.  It’s no wonder that the Jewish New Year is now, that Advent approaches, that we prepare to begin again in the middle of what seems bleak and dark and cold, our hearts gazing hopefully for what’s next. 

And that’s the challenge: being here now while the world is always turning.  I hope that another new thing in our lives, our Sunday School program at St. Mark’s, can be a source of strength for all of us.  Our children have an amazing gift of being able to savor the present and behold what’s coming with a delight and freedom that we can both encourage and learn from.  We are all each other’s teachers and guides.  I hope that as we settle into winter and prepare to begin again, we can do so together.  If you’ve been away, come home, see what’s happening at St. Mark’s on Sunday mornings, and be a part of it.

 

Bess Stokes, Coordinator for Children and Youth