There is a Season for Every Activity under Heaven

"We don't control the seasons; they happen to us.  Winter, spring, summer and fall come to us whether we like it or not.  Their rhythms teach us about our spiritual lives and the ways f God.  Consider the following description on the paradox of death and rebirth in nature and in our lives.

'Autumn is a season of great beauty, but it is also a season of decline: the days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summer's abundance decays toward winter's death...In my own experience of autumn, I am rarely aware that seeds are being planted...But as I explore autumn's paradox of dying and seeding, I feel the power of metaphor.  In the autumnal events of my own experience, I am easily fixated on surface appearances - on the decline of meaning, the decay of relationships, the death of a work.  And yet if I look more deeply, I may see the myriad possibilities being planted to bear fruit in some season yet to come.  

In retrospect, I can see in my own life what I could not see at the time - how the job I lost helped me find work I needed to do, how the 'road closed' sign turned me toward terrain I needed to travel, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to discern meanings I needed to know.  On the surface, it seemed that life was lessening, but silently and lavishly the seeds of new life were always being sown.'"  Parker Palmer from Daily Office