I Remember the Preacher

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

When I was young and sitting in the back rows of that Baptist Church I would occassionally catch bits of a sermon or a passage from the Book.  Little things have stuck with me, like don't take it apart it you don't have a good shot at being able to reassemble it.  Most of Deutoronomy stuck with me because the sexual stuff was pretty darn interesting.  But one passage always caught my attention.  Maybe it was because of the Byrds version of it that had flooded the airways when I was young.


There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.


What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.

Ecclesiastes 3 (partial)


Last night I gave my oldest son a piece of advice. It went something like this. When I was your age my parent’s asked me not to so something. I thought I knew the world better than they did. In the end I ignored there advice and was expelled from high school. As you know through good fortune I was re-instated. I am asking you to be mindful. There will be a cost if you aren’t. Every bone in your body is going to want to do what you want to do and nothing else, but use that ultra rational mind you have and figure out what is at stake.

We will see what happens. The world is circle filled with repeating seasons. I have seen my share. My hope is that maybe this young one won’t have to repeat my mistakes.