There is a Time for Everything

Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that there is a season for all things, every activity under heaven.  a time to die or uproot, heal and build, laugh and dance, to scatter and collect, to hug and not hug, keep or throw, tear or mend, love or hate, make war or peace.

     Certainly as we continue to receive service people home and send others overseas we can all wonder about the seasons of war and hope for the seasons of peace.  These are thoughts that can take over my mind and time.  Depending on the day my mind may change as to which is best for the our country and the oppressed people of others while always asking where is God in all of this.  What makes the difference is when I think of the countries as a whole or as full of individuals with many opinions and desires much like me. People who have had seasons to their lives just as I have.
     As I gathered with a small group of woman today for a day of prayer and meditation I thought of the woman/friends who have surrounded me in my life. I have friends that have scattered and others I have gathered up after being apart.  I have the friends that know my husband as well as they know me and then I have the friends that he has never met.
    Recently I saw a mom with her young children in the grocery store and I was reminded of that season of my life.  A crazy season but one that was filled with friends.  I think of the mothers I raised my children with. One woman I met after she came to our house after a fire near by and she fell in love with our cute three year old son who was wearing yellow Winnie the Pooh footie pajamas with one of his sister's barrettes clipped in his curls.  Another I met teaching vacation bible school, though we really became friends because of our middle children (they would want me to mention this) and then the third mother walked into our church quilting group and was looking for a youth group.  Together we raised our children, and I mean really raised them.  We spent enormous amounts of time together taking pure delight in our kids. They were our best entertainment, they were the reason we laughed and cried.  They were the reason we fought against wrongs and they brought us together to celebrate victories.

    And yet as close as we were the seasons came and went. We supported each other through divorce, death, and continuing our education. We have scattered some, due to location and circumstance and yet our friendships are strong, and now there is room for old and new friends alike.
     These are not my only friends, just the friends of a season.  I have my coffee friends, my worship friends, friends that have survived time and distance that I see only once or twice a year, heart friends and friends I am just getting to know.  I am fortunate enough to be married to my friend and as our children age they are becoming friend like and as I age my own parents have become friends.
     So what is all this blathering on about friends?  Well I was simply reminded of a time in my life with that young mother and as we have been barraged by all the political ads on t.v. I am aware of one thing---these people--everyone of my friends thinks differently on some issue.  I did not ask anyone of them how they were going to vote as a requirement of friendship.
     I have to believe that there are people in these war torn countries that have been blessed with friends such as I, I also imagine that there were some they disagreed with politically but the love of friendship won in those circumstances.

     Ecclesiastes continues:¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 

     So today, after a day of prayer, I pray for peace, I pray that every person would be able to be happy and do good (what happens when these basic things are denied a person?).  I assume that I am not alone in experiencing a season of friendships. And I know, as stated in verse 19 As one dies, so dies the other. 
     It is this reality of what we have in common that causes me to pray, Paul Simon wrote "Wartime Prayers" 
Wartime prayers, wartime prayers
In every language spoken,
For every family scattered and broken....

In Defense of Martha

    As I hurried around this week playing administrator for the majoity of my time, I kept thinking of Mary and Martha, oh how I wish Mary came first for me.  However the reality is that I am a Martha first.  I balance checkbooks at home and given some downtime at church you might just find me creating a chart to depict our giving or attendance over the year.  I like charts, I follow guidelines, meet deadlines and follow the straight line to completion.
     I was made aware of this part of myself during a bible study.  In this study the participants shared with each other what the gifts they saw in the other.  Almost everyone in the study said I had the gift of administration.  Administration!  Were they serious, I was once a Dead Head (someone who follows the Grateful Dead), I couldn't believe it, I loved poetry, and reading scripture, writing and pondering great thoughts.  Administrator?

 
Oh how I would love to have Mary be first for me, first at home to walk in the kitchen after dinner, she would walk right by those dirty dishes and straight over to some cozy spot with candles and devotionals.  At work, well at work Mary would make sure that visitations weren't the first thing to get pushed to the side when the furnace breaks.  The truth is that there are few clergy that answer the call to ministry as a Martha, Mary definitely answers the call but... well if you are me, Martha gets her foot in the door without hesitation.
     In Luke 10:42 Jesus tells Martha, after she has complained about her sister not helping with the dishes "Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her" 
    
  How comforting is this for us?  We have a choice, we have a choice to spend time in prayer, in fellowship, in community....we get to chose.  Our tendencies, our leanings, our genetics, our culture and our bias can all be overturned by choice.  We have a choice and when we chose Jesus that cannot be taken away from us.
     So I have learned to embrace the Martha in me, and while I may often feel like Dr. Dolittle's pushmi-pullyu, literally pulling in two different directions, I am a conscious participant in the struggle.  
     And finally in defense of Martha, if Mary had done just a little of the cooking , Martha might have found herself at the feet of Christ even if she was planning the next meal while she was there.