To Everything There is a Season

My family - before the kids left the nest for good.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” Thus begins the well-loved Bible passage, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, adapted into the song, “Turn, Turn, Turn” by Pete Seeger in the late 1950s. The words to this verse remind us that nothing in life is permanent, and so we should not be overly attached to any particular time, place, or thing.

             The other day I was talking to friends who had realized it was time to let go of some volunteer responsibilities because that part of their lives felt complete. These friends and I feel there is a spiritual reason for each of our ventures – perhaps a lesson to be learned, or an opportunity to polish one of our gifts. But the time comes when the lesson has been learned, the gift has been shared, and we must move on to the next phase of life.

            I have arrived at the time of letting go in different ways – sometimes because a certain activity or thing has outworn its usefulness. One of the lines in Ecclesiastes 3 is “A time to keep and a time to throw away.” A lot of us have trouble coming to the time of throwing away because we are attached to things that we used to enjoy. I kept my childhood stamp collection for most of my life because I thought one of my children would take up the hobby, but neither of them did. After clearing out an attic full of mementos before selling my parents’ house, I realized it was time to start letting go of some of my own memorabilia. I sold the stamps and discovered that they weren’t as valuable as I’d thought. Then I let go of a lot of other things that had outlived their usefulness and discovered the liberating pleasure of uncluttered spaces.

            There is “a time to plant and a time to uproot” according to another line in Ecclesiastes. Mark and I planted about 400 Christmas tree saplings on the land that we bought in the town of Maryland ten years ago. We had always enjoyed living in a friendly neighborhood in walking distance of Main Street, but we liked the idea of having a place to go where there was an unobstructed view of the mountains, a field of wildflowers, and a wooded area with a stream running through it.

Over a period of three years we planted a variety of Christmas trees and Mark built a shed with a sleeping platform inside. We spent one night in the shed before it was taken over by snakes. Mark spent many days transporting snakes to distant lands, scything the weeds that grew around the saplings, spraying them with deer repellant, and building blue bird houses. We enjoyed picnics in the meadow and down by the stream, and we went at night a few times to gaze at the star-filled sky. After three years, we realized that caring for the land and the trees was too time-consuming, and the cost of the property taxes outweighed the benefits of owning the land. When we sold it, some people thought we had realized we made a mistake in buying it in the first place. But we do not regret the time we spent there: working, playing, and just enjoying the beauty of nature. Sometimes we have to experience a thing before we can let go of it.

When seniors retire from a lifelong career, there can be a huge sense of completion. Some retirees embark on a new venture, either part-time or volunteer. The 2020 Census is coming up and offers opportunities for flexible part-time work. In 2009 I worked as a census enumerator, driving all over Otsego County to verify addresses. The following year I signed up to train for the job of meeting, interviewing, and counting residents. I got lost on the first day of field work and stopped at a house to ask directions. I knocked on the door and it opened, letting four large dogs run out and chase me to my car. One dog bit my derrière, a sure sign that this was not the job for me.

Another line in the Ecclesiastes passage is: “a time to seek and a time to lose.” I had been seeking employment when I took the census job, but it turned out it was actually “time to lose.” A year ago, I sought the position of senior scene columnist for the Star, and the time was right. At least now I can work at my computer, safe from snakes and vicious dogs.