Last week, Spring arrived with a vengeance in Washington. It was sunny and the temperature rose to the mid-to-upper 70′s (F). The trees responded to the warmth by popping their buds almost instantaneously. One day, you could look down on Massachusetts Avenue from our ninth floor window upon the dreary browns and grays of mid-winter, and the next, the avenue was lined with lacy canopies of pink and green. People, too, were transformed from scurrying puffballs of quilting and caps to couples strolling (yes, actually strolling) along together in their shirtsleeves.
Then, the weather turned cold again, just in time for the weekend, with low temperatures below freezing and the highs barely breaking 40. The sweaters and lined jackets from past months haven’t been mothballed quite yet, and they come in handy once again against the chill. That little lever on the thermostat got pushed back from ‘cool’ to ‘heat’ once again. It’s no big deal. It’s only a temporary cold snap: some vagrant left-over Arctic air that wandered down our way. It’ll be gone soon enough. The forsythia’s in full bloom. The clematis is a foot tall already. The garden is full of the green leaves that promise a summer of colorful blooms. Change has come.
See how gracefully we accept the seasonal transformations of our world, even when we experience unexpected (and unwelcome) setbacks? Surely, we may complain about having to get bundled up again after having had a taste of unseasonable warmth. Regardless, we accept these things as just part of the cycles of nature. We know that these changes come and go, each with its own particular joys and sorrows, comforts and discomforts. “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.”
Perspective is everything. The wave of cold that embraces us today would have seemed like a break from the bitterness of winter only a few weeks ago instead of a setback in our steady march toward summer. So it is when we look at the midlife transition from a spiritual perspective. Once again, perspective is everything. We have trained ourselves to face even the worst that the planet has to offer us with a certain amount of equanimity: we face ‘hurricane season’ knowing that, although there’s a chance we may have to deal with danger and damage, chances are very good that we won’t. We hope for the best and pray that others, too, will be spared.
Somehow, though, when it comes to coping with the seasons of our own lives, we may not find ourselves exercising the same degree of calm acceptance. Like women and men fighting fiercely to hang on to the last vestiges of summer as the first snowflakes fall, some of us cling unrelentingly to the hopes and dreams of adulthood (that all too often are simply recapitulations of childhood imaginings) even as the transition into midlife is sweeping them away. What those who descend into midlife crisis lack is the same perspective that allows us gracefully to accept the passing of the seasons, knowing, as we do, that along with the discomforts of the coming season, each will have its own very special grace and charm.
The joys and the sorrows of youth (did we forget about those?) have given way to the joys and sorrows of adulthood. Likewise, these, too, are destined to give way and make way for the still deeper experiences of maturity. Only with the perspective of the whole of life, and the spiritual strengths (virtues) of faith, hope, and love, will we be able to appreciate properly the gifts that maturity has to offer us. Once again, we can learn much from the perspective of Robert Browning’s poem, Rabbi Ben Ezra:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown
Technorati Tags:
youth, adulthood, maturity, seasons, acceptance, perspective
Tags: acceptance, adulthood, maturity, perspective, seasons, youth