Time Enough

Sometimes, it's fun to take life at a fast pace - say 1.5x. But sometimes...it's just a tad much. School is much like living at 1.5x, whereas summer, to me, is more like normal, or 1x. After too much 1x, it's hard to get back into the rhythm of 1.5x, but once you do, it's rather catchy. There lies the problem - had you ever tried listening to something fast, then slowly? It's agony, listening to notes that used to take a mere split second drag on for what seems like hours. If you're used to living quickly, then it's nigh on impossible to slow down to normalcy.

The change is hard, yes...but most often, it's good. When I'm speeding on down the road, enjoying speed, I forget how I love to reach my arm out the window and pretend to fly, or the teasing pull of the air in my hair, whipping it into my eyes and stinging them. I forget how I love to drive slowly along the streets, noting each tree and house, and enjoying how unique each is.

Maybe that's why I love autumn so much...it's a time of change, but it's slow and tangible. It doesn't happen overnight, and yet somehow it creep up on you. I walk my paths, the leaves falling across my way, the wind caressing the same leaves, urging them to let go of all they've ever known, assuring them that the fall is not painful; that they will guide them.

How simple, how pleasurable it would be, to be a falling leaf, crossing the sky, then falling to rest gently and skittishly on the ground, 'til the wind chose to guide me farther, in whirling eddies in the streets, or joined with many others and serving to cushion children as they lay on me. Or, to serve a great honor, and be taken up by a child, and become part of a collection, chosen to show my beauty for years to come.

Ah, yes...when I am moving at 1.5x, I forget what it is to live simply, and to take joy in that existence. I forget how I love God, and the wonders He works upon the world at the change of seasons. I forget the change that He wants to work in my heart, even as the cool wind sweeps in and changes the season.

But He works, and is faithful to complete His work.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for ever activity under heaven:
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,
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 does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his 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. God does it so that men will revere Him." ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

There is a time to live in 1.5x, and a time to settle in 1x.

~Fumble