Cornucopia / Cynthia Dewes

The seasons of life are another example of God’s gifts to us

Nature is very orderly. God has created a universe in which reasonable progressions occur: night follows day, winter follows autumn. The same is true of human life as well. We progress through various stages from birth to death. Although, being human and having been given the unique ability to exercise free will, we can mess up the system now and then.

At least we can give it a try. That’s why some 40 year olds try to act like teenagers, and some 14 year olds are going on 35. So the rest of us point out that this is inappropriate behavior, and chalk it up to being human.

When we’re babies, we’re totally self‑centered. We’re only interested in survival and comfort, which is why we’re so attached to our mothers at this age. After all, she’s the one who usually provides them. If we’re lucky, we also have a good dad and other loving relatives who add to our satisfaction. Even brothers and sisters qualify, if they’re being good.

As time goes on, our horizons broaden. We learn that other things besides eating and sleeping contribute to our well-being, and that other relationships are important to us as well. Other kids besides our siblings, teachers, neighbors and adults who are part of our parents’ lives are added to our circle of support and interest.

In puberty, we begin to discover the charms of the opposite sex, and what is permissible behavior and what is not. We begin to learn the finer points of conversation and interactions with people who may not agree with us. We learn to listen without judgment or thinking only of the next retort we might deliver. We learn tolerance and how to accept authority.

Finally, as adults we must learn responsibility. We become responsible for preparing ourselves to work at something, and then doing it as well as we can. We learn to get along with our co-workers whether we like them or not, and to listen to the boss and sometimes advise him or her when it’s appropriate. We should try to make the work place somewhere we want to go each day.

We also learn responsibility in our relationships. We try to be a good friend or neighbor without being a doormat. In a love relationship, we practice honesty and show the other person that we can be trusted in all ways. We’ll experience a kind of freedom that extends beyond to life in general.

And when we’re old, we will try not to whine or burden others with our aches and pains. When we’re young, we tend to think we’ll never get really old, and if we do we’ll be in better shape than those folks. Wrong.

We’ll keep still when younger folks want to reinvent the wheel, as it were, and propose something that we’ve found does not work. But then, that’s how we learned, too.

The seasons of life are as certain as the seasons of the calendar year: springtime birth to summer growth to fading autumn and eventually the gentle quiet of winter. God knew what he was doing when he created the world.
 

(Cynthia Dewes, a member of St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Greencastle, is a regular columnist for The Criterion.) †