We tend to think of summertime as a time of renewal and growth, of greens and warmth, and a shedding of our winter protection. It is not always so. Life has seasons too, but they are not seasonal like the weather. They arc through as plots and subplots, but they are not scheduled like classes for us to pick and choose. We do not sign up for the seasons we want or need, we sign up for everything we get.
Oswald Chambers, the great theologian, once said that God does not give us an overcoming life, but a life as we overcome. He knew better than to tell us to look for a clear winner or loser, or to rely on the joys of summer like our grills, our pool parties or baseball games. Rather, he was warning us to expect a series of battles in which we would be challenged to find our great Protector. He knew something about life’s mercurial nature, a mysterious sojourn through special effects like fog, cliffs, and winding pathways that would cause us to grasp at nothing, trip and sometimes fall. He knew those would also be our seasons.
Recently I had a good friend die rather suddenly. He was one of my buddies, a guy I could hang with, laugh with, goof around with and yes, commiserate with. Chuck and I didn’t see each other often but when we did, my life filled up with a renewed hope for what lie ahead. He made my difficult seasons easier, and through our exchanges, the fog lifted for a while. Now Chuck is out there, above me, but still with me, encouraging me to lean into my faith, but I still miss his presence in front of me.
I am letting go of the once-beautiful gum tree that formed an enormous canopy over my yard, which I call a garden. The difference between a yard and a garden is that you live in a yard, but you grow in a garden. The gum will be cut down this fall and I will have to let go of how the sounds, light and water moved through it. The birds will have to get used to landing somewhere else, and I will have to have faith that new life will spring forth as God and my garden decide what to do with each other.
I don’t like loss. It’s not the adjustments that hurt – it’s the soreness I get from stretching those faith muscles I haven’t used in a while. They are there and ready, but I’ve been ignoring them for fear that they might break if I put them to use, or they might ache if I ask them to sing and breathe again. Loss is not a spectator sport. We will be immersed in it whether we like it or not, and to insist on sitting on the bench will only make it worse. Our garden and our friends would not want us over there by ourselves.
Over the past year I’ve sent out over one thousand queries to agents asking them to read my book called Something to Write Home About. Though the book has evolved, gotten tighter, more readable and richer, agents are still not responding. Through the myriad modifications and marketing efforts, my book is not getting off the ground. It may never launch, and as time goes on, I feel a subtle nudge to let it go, and let God take me down a new path, perhaps a new book. It may be time to recognized that my determination to hold on and keep trying has taken on the mask of stubbornness, which sound a lot like the dark side of being stuck.
So, I listen closely to the sound of new birds moving around. They are the ones looking down from above and seeing things I cannot see. They are in other yards, waiting to move in and take up creative residency in the new tree I will plant someday where branches reach out again and cover my sense of loss and sadness.
Without Chuck, without the old gum tree, without a book agent, life will not be the same. New muscles are stretching everywhere while God and loss figure out what to do with each other. They look like the same person, but they are both the beginning of something new.