The Fifth Season by Frederick Ohler

For four seasons
and all the cycles within them
within us and without us
for periods, tides, phases
for birth and growth and decline and death
thank You, God.
To live is to have rhythm
and time is the signature on all Your compositions.

Forgive us that
too often we fight against the rhythm
trying to be twenty when we’re fifty,
craving adulthood when we're still children
coveting summer when it’s winter,
detesting the heat when it’s July,
too often unwilling
to let go and let You be
in. Your good time.

Forgive us no less when we worship Chronos,
cower before clocks
schedule surprises
and tick our lives to death.

We are not Canaanites, we are Christians
and for us there is a fifth season.
You became flesh
that flesh might become You.
Love invaded time
and love is the fifth season
not bound by daylight time
or standard time
or Pacific time
or troubled time
or any time.
always seasoned, always seasoning
as old as ‘in the beginning’
as permanent as forever,
as new
as now
as possible as Christ.
Make Him possible in us.
Amen.

This is my prayer for the New Year. Would you like to join me?