Wintering : The Rhythm of Rest

“A Rhythm of Rest”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13

January 19, 2025 Cobleskill United Methodist Church, Pastor Anna Blinn Cole

Second Sunday after Epiphany

Everything Has Its Time

3 For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven:

2 a time to be born and a time to die;a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted;3 a time to kill and a time to heal;a time to break down and a time to build up;4 a time to weep and a time to laugh;a time to mourn and a time to dance;5 a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together;a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;6 a time to seek and a time to lose;a time to keep and a time to throw away;7 a time to tear and a time to sew;a time to keep silent and a time to speak;8 a time to love and a time to hate;a time for war and a time for peace.

The God-Given Task

9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.

A week or so ago, my 9-year-old asked me, thoughtfully, what my favorite season is.  I considered spring with the excitement of digging in the dirt after a long wait and then watching new shoots come from the ground.  I considered summer with its glorious porch-sitting.  I considered fall with its cups of hot apple cider and stacks of pumpkins.  And, yes, I even considered winter, with the thrill of gliding across the snow on cross-country skis and the peacefulness of snowflakes falling from the sky.  

The truth is, I told my daughter, I can’t pick just one season.  I love parts of all of them.  But in my thinking through her question, I did notice one particular trend in my love of each of the seasons.  In every season, no matter the season, the favorite things that came to me involved time spent away from the usual grind of work and busyness in life.  Digging in the garden, sitting on my porch, sipping hot cider, skiing through the woods.  

And that’s when it occurred to me: What even are the seasons without experiencing them in full by taking time away from what keeps us busy?

Perhaps you’ve had the experience, I know I have, when time seems to fly.  Like you write the date and accidentally write the number of the month that was 5 months ago or the year that changed a couple weeks ago, or if you’re really in a fog, you write the number of the year that was 2 or 3 years ago.  Why is time like this?  Where do the months and the years go?  I find this date confusion particularly happens to me when I haven’t been present to the passing seasons with adequate amounts of rest. 

Our scripture today is a classic.  

3 For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven:

2 a time to be born and a time to die;a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted;3 a time to kill and a time to heal;a time to break down and a time to build up;4 a time to weep and a time to laugh;a time to mourn and a time to dance;

It has these beautiful alternating lines.  Like a see-saw, moving between the seasons of life.  Grief, fulfillment.  Togetherness, solitude.  Emptying, gathering together.  There’s a reason why the Book of Ecclesiastes is considered part of the Wisdom Literature of the Bible.  There is a profound timelessness of these words.  A profound timelessness to the pursuit of balance.  

More often than not, though, I read this passage at funerals.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very fitting scripture for the transition between life on this earth and eternal life.  But I think we sometimes forget the wisdom God speaks to us through this passage for here and now, for the days of living.  

In fact, the passage’s writer actually speaks to this, as if he or she is peeking into our modern day lives to see the way we fill our calendar and dart from place to place all day long.  Verse 10:

“I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.”  Thank you!  I feel seen with this line.  But then the writer goes on: “God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, God has put a sense of past and future into [our] minds, yet we cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”  

It’s not that our busy-ness is inherently wrong, it’s just that we sometimes miss the point.  We have a sense of what has happened; we have a sense of what is to come; yet do we really understand what God has been up to in the world as those days have passed?  It goes back to that same feeling when you can’t remember what year or month it is while writing the date because the season that just passed is a blur.  Theoretically we know that time passed, but were we paying attention?   Did we have enough balance in our life to find out what God was doing in between the lines of our everyday busy-ness?

We’re now in the dead of winter.  It may not be everyone’s favorite season, but it’s hard to deny the way the natural world forces us into different patterns of work and rest.  As someone who grew up in the south and rarely saw snow, I have a difficult time controlling my excitement about snow days in the wintery north.  And I don’t think all of that is just the sight of fresh snow.  There’s part of me that really craves for the natural world to intervene in our over-scheduled lives and say:  Nope, not today!  Stay home.  Play in the snow.  Rest.  Drink hot chocolate.  Admire the beauty.  Sometimes we need God to speak to us like this through the gifts of the seasons.  Sometimes this forced pause becomes the only way to see what God is doing when we would otherwise be busy with the busy-ness of life and work.  

There’s also another aspect to this cold season in which we find ourselves.  There’s something much deeper and almost granular about the season of Winter that runs into our very bones.  The stark silhouettes of trees that have lost every leaf.  The hard ground that hides all signs of life.  The icicles that lengthen slowly over time.  

In her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, Katherine May sees connections between this dormant season in the natural world and the periods in our own lives when we experience loss, change, or hardship.  Seasons that aren’t about calendars or schedules, but about heavy feelings deep inside that linger and grow.  A feeling brought on by changes around us that feel outside of our control.  

When we’re feeling this way, the season of winter gets us.  The natural world around us knows that when the cold winds blow, when the hard things happen that hit us in our core, these are times when we may need to just slow down.  Rest.  Take care of ourselves.  Hunker down.  In the book, Katherine May highlights the natural world's cycles of dormancy and regrowth in winter, suggesting that seasons of rest, even if it feels forced, can be the opportunity we need for reflection, growth, and renewal.  Just like how the trees and animals around us use winter to rest and prepare for the coming seasons. When an animal hibernates, its heartbeat slows, its breathing slows, and its body temperature lowers, just like a human's response to meditation or deep prayer.  

In Ecclesiastes God reminds us that we need all seasons.  Even Winter.  Maybe especially Winter.  In times like these, right now, when we may be feeling hopeless or angry or disappointed or lost, whether it’s because of the political realities around us or our own personal tragedies, we must ask ourselves this: is there wisdom to learn from these hard seasons?  Is there grace waiting for us when we pause?  

I don’t know what season you may be finding yourself in, which verse of Ecclesiastes is hitting the hardest.  But I do know that life will always be a cycle of seasons.  Always changing; always turning.  I trust that God created a world with variety and balance on purpose.  That the seats we sit on on our sunny porch will eventually be dusted with snow.  That life’s high moments will be accompanied by life’s low moments.  And yet can we name that in the midst of this turning, God is still present.  There is wisdom to be learned.  Grace to be found.  Can we imagine ourselves being open in each season, hard or easy, to the blessings God may be giving to us?  

Do you remember when the pandemic swept through our communities and churches four years ago?  Of course.  How could we forget?  It was surely a time to “refrain from embracing” as the scripture says.  And we experienced a lot of grief and loss as a result.  In some ways it seemed like a “wintering” experience that lasted through winter, spring, summer and fall.  And then all over again.  And yet, the pandemic brought with it dramatic changes to our scheduled lives that forced us into times of rest and retreat that we didn’t expect, but in many ways we needed.  Loaves of bread were baked.  New instruments were picked up.  Walks were taken.  Phone calls happened more regularly.  I will remember forever how my own daughter learned to ride her bike in the pandemic mostly because the church parking lot beside our house was empty almost all of the time.    

God works through every season to bring blessings into our lives.  Every season.  Even, and especially, the hard ones.  We have to slow down to see them, though.  

This week, deep in the season of winter, I invite you to write the date each day with intention.  And to plan into your day each day, one block of time that is for your own renewal.  Some days you might only have 5 minutes to spare.  The point is not how long you can carve out, it’s recognizing that you have the God-given power to create balance in your own life.  That you were not a being made to go 24-7.  And when things in the world feel hard and out of control, your time, and your renewal, and your own balance are very much in your control.  

This season, may you find small blessings in unexpected places.  And may God’s grace hold you like a warm blanket in a cold wind.  

Grace and Peace, Pastor Anna