Amidst the Bones

 "For everything, there is a season, and a purpose, under heaven". Solomon - Ecclesiastes 3:1.

With Autumn nudging its way into the very air of the days, I have been enjoying a few weeks away from the perpetual routines of the office to allow some space for the moment I find myself in.

This season always proves more demanding than the rejuvenation of the Spring or the stillness of Winter, purely because nature is shedding it's Summer garb, and that means lots of yard work. When your home resides under four oak trees, the period from mid-September to early December is filled with numerous hours of first, dealing with thousands of Acorns and, once that wanes, a good month of collecting and removing the fallen leaves.

It is clearly a time when the impact of change preys heavily in your thoughts, and especially in respect to how nature itself pairs back to the very 'bones of the earth' in order to prepare for a fresh appearing after lying fallow.

Such a cycle is vital to creation. Prior to the fall, the world was to be continually replenished by just such a method (Genesis 1:29), cultivated and worked by the role of Adam as a gardener (Genesis 2:15). Clearly, the Lord's intent from that initial moment of our union on was to cause us to learn from what we engaged with, the very soil and seed seeking to 'tell' us of the miracle of life, and a life, like creation itself, which burst from the 'darkness and void' of what appeared empty - buried and unseen.

The very aim and intention of this season is to provoke. When truly 'seen', it should unsettle us, because it reminds us that the realm of shedding and decay is imperative if new life is to be evidenced.

In His dealings with Israel, the Lord takes the Prophet Ezekiel into a graveyard - a valley filled with death - and asks if anything can be done about this state of natural finality. Ezekiel would have found no resolve to such a trouble if he had visited alone, but he understood the essential nature of who was with him - the prerogative wasn't with him, or that natural state of affairs, but with the maker of all things.

So, as I collected my fourth sackful of debris this morning, I considered the 'bones' of life - the fact that I'm now of an age where my body is beginning to often complain when I walk for a while or sit too much, or just seek to make it into another Winter. I think of all the wreckage of the last few years, which has literally become a field of the bones of those lost, principally due to the wilful negligence of authorities arbitrary policies that have left us far more destitute than a few years ago. I see the 'season' of shedding upon us, and I recognise the validity of the Lord calling us to His side in that place, asking us to expectantly watch as He acts as only He can, changing and transforming what is beyond repair into, first, something structured and operable and, second, filling this with the miracle of life.

Occasionally, some word or deed appears amongst us that manages a measure of the first of these - a message of hope or inspiration that makes us sit up and take notice, but something far more profound is necessary to give such a moment "wings" - to turn it into a realm whereby life and health truly come upon us and spread amongst us - a genuine euchatastrophie!

I'm thankful for the Autumn. I love its richness and its colour, its mellow moments and it 'heads up' ability to sing about the coming winter, but I also know that these 'bones' tell us so much about our own mortality and need for resurrection.

Let's hope and pray that such considerations impact upon our oh so easily distracted world in the season to come. Men are in great need of the one who is, eternally, the resurrection and the life.