The Human Seasons

Posted bymalcolmsmusingscomPosted inUncategorized

I’ve often reflected on the ages and stages of life… different chapters in life’s book, acts in life’s play, carriages in life’s train…

I’ve considered Shakespeare’s ‘seven ages of man’… the helpless infant, whining schoolboy, emotional lover, devoted soldier, wise judge, old man, helpless aged…

I’ve mused on Ecclesiastes: ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot…’

Recently several folks have referred to ‘the four seasons of life’…

Poet John Keats wrote a sonnet ‘The Human Seasons’ that starts:

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
⁠There are four seasons in the mind of man:

With Keat’s help it’s not difficult to describe these four human seasons.

The spring of youth – energy, beauty, growth, potential… The summer of adulthood – strength, warmth, maturity, experience… The autumn of middle-age – slowing down, harvest, wisdom, fresh beauty…

I’ve seen, experienced, got the t-shirt for those three seasons… Each has been good. I thank God for my spring, summer and autumn…

But as someone who’s about to enter my winter of old age… with its decay, darkness, cold… this season could look pretty bleak…

Instead, here’s my four positive prayers for my ‘winter season’:

Acceptance: I can’t turn back the clock. Winter happens in every year. I’m grateful to have got to mine! For survivors, growing old is inevitable. Keats died when he was 25…

Appreciation: I enjoy energetic, beautiful youths… our grandchildren… in their spring; mature, strong, capable adults… our children… in their summer; wise, experienced middle-aged friends in their autumn.

Anticipation – In cold there can be warmth, in darkness there can be light, in the worst of times there can be the best of times, even in death there is life.

Adventure – I hope and pray that I will continue to facing my future positively, this coming season of winter is an adventure into the unknown.

15 thoughts on “The Human Seasons”

  2. That’s good perspective Malcolm. My wife and her visiting sister visited my aunt yesterday. 95, lives at home, going blind but still uses a loom to make rugs from old clothes. She is a cheerful person who knows life’s score and knows Christs and His promises. “Well, I’ll live here till I live there” is her outlook.

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    1. Thanks, Dana. Good reflection…. I just don’t want any quietness and rest just yet…. I think I’m looking for a personal prolonged autumn!! But yes- I’m certainly looking forward to my eternal season – where there’s no need for the sun…!

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  5. Well said, Malcolm–especially summarizing you attitude toward “winter” with four well-chosen words that start with A! Charles Spurgeon wrote, “[Those who are] true and good have about them a vitality which age cannot diminish” (Morning by Morning, 349). THAT can be our goal–to remain true to God’s Word and good to all people, nurtured by the Spirit with a vitality that never wanes. Even those in the spring and summer of their lives will be drawn to such vitality and encouraged for their own progression through the seasons.

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  6. Powerful thoughts, Malcolm. Thanks so much for sharing them.
    I turned 70 this year, thinking I was in the home stretch, but I’m finding out unless a building falls on me in the near future, I’m not even close. 😉 Too many people in other “seasons” to bless and be blessed by, as you so beautifully point out.

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