Via Positiva
Chapter Five: Untying the Knot
“I wonder how long it would take you to notice the recurrence of the seasons if you were the first man on earth. What would it be like to live in open-ended time broken only by days and night? ... How long would you have to live on earth before you could feel with any assurance that any one particular period of cold would, in fact, end?” (75)
This idea sends me off thinking in several directions.
- The first is that we are so fond of ‘trending.’ Can you imagine living in the first warming trend? You are coming out of winter, the temperature is rising. Where will it peak (like the price of gasoline, or the stock-market, or your weight!)? If the temperature continues to rise at this rate, say 5 degrees a day, we will burn up by next month!!
- The second is our cultural fascination with seasons. People are trekking to the Northeast to see the season turn! Last year I was in Gettysburg in November and it was stunning! We celebrate the changes. We look forward to the first freeze. We marvel at the first snow! On Christmas Eve, was it 2004, we were having our Christmas Eve service in Houston and it was snowing! It was beautiful, wonderful, stunning. And in the spring, when the trees bud, when the grass greens, we are comforted. We were made for rhythm.
- The third is our need to reassure one another. This will not last forever. It was the summer of 1980. How many days was it that it was over a 100 degrees in Texas? Wichita Falls recorded a high of 117! And I wonder if that is the way of life. The Great Depression was not permanent. I have been reading about the Bubonic Plague in the last days of the Roman Empire (during the reign of Justinian). Would it ever end? In the midst, you think it will never end. However, so far, those who have lived though the cycles will tell you, this too shall pass.
- Then, someday, the knot will untie. That is the witness of Scripture anyway. Someday the cycle will cease. Can we even imagine?
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