Today, in this first week of autumn, I’ve been bantering with friends who are mourning the demise of summer: OK, so it’s a little cooler now; that’s what long-sleeved shirts are for. Flip flops are terrible for your feet; it’s a good thing you can’t wear them year round. You need to learn to appreciate the joys of a good goose down vest.         

With a few exceptions, I don’t understand the concept of “bad weather.” When the weather guy on TV says, “Tomorrow the weather will be taking a turn for the worse,” I usually don’t get it. Does he really want sun every day?

Weather can be destructive, and everyone agrees that is bad. I wouldn’t wish a rainstorm on an outdoor wedding. But other than destruction and special occasions, I don’t understand why any weather, or any season of the year, should be considered bad. Why do so many people think summer is best?         

For a while, I lived in a place where the annual seasons, as we know them in the temperate zone, scarcely exist at all. There were rainy seasons and dry seasons, but that was about it. It got a little cooler in August, and a little warmer around Christmas time, but the variations were small. It was never cold (in seven years we never saw frost on the ground), and it was never hot (rarely did high temperatures climb past the 80s). We lived just south of the equator, near Nairobi, Kenya, at nearly 6,000 feet elevation. Some called the climate “eternal spring,” and declared it ideal.         

It was a good place to live, but after having lived there for several months, I began to become aware of a sense of unease. I wasn’t sure what the problem was until I realized one day that I had lost track of the year. The calendar said February, but my senses were not experiencing February. My internal clock was out of whack.         

So I stopped to think about February. Where I had grown up–in Northern California–a foggy, frosty winter would be giving way to early spring. The almond orchards were budding, and would soon burst forth in a snowy profusion of honey bee playgrounds. The almond blossoms would be followed by cherry, early peach, apricot, and late peach blossoms. Each would be followed in turn by leaves in the special green reserved for new spring growth.

As I walked around my yard in Kenya, where leaves hung on trees year round, it somehow helped me stay centered in reality to review the California seasons.

In our personal lives, the "seasons" are predictable but the "times" are not. If we enjoy a good long life, we can count on the springtime of youth, the summer of our prime years, the autumn of late middle age and retirement, and finally the wintertime of old age. In any of these seasons, we may experience sunny times and stormy times.

As long as life continues in this imperfect world, we can benefit from the wise words of Solomon about life’s times and seasons:

"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,  

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" (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, NIV).

Does Solomon mean to say that these are all entirely positive things? No. Only that, if we live long enough on this planet, they are all things we can anticipate. We will do well, Solomon seems to say, to accept reality.

Hundreds of years after Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, Paul wrote a letter to the Philippians.

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances,” he wrote. “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:11-13, NIV).

It is likely that Paul wrote this while incarcerated in a Roman prison cell—quite a place to find contentment.

I no longer live in Kenya. I now live in Nebraska, and despite the protestations of some of my friends, I am hoping for an early snowfall. It’s been a good summer; now I’m glad to see the leaves turning. When winter comes, I’ll put on long johns, a winter parka, fleece gloves, and I’ll crank up my snow blower. Then, after months of what I hope is a cold, snowy winter, I will eagerly welcome the earliest buds of spring.

Times and seasons will come; of that I am sure. If we cultivate the outlook of Solomon and Paul, we will genuinely enjoy most, and we will benefit from all, even if every experience is not exactly what we would have chosen.

B.W.