THE ROTATION OF GREATNESS

Every soul has its season and every season has its soul. Despite appearances no one’s life blooms perennially. Even the privileged must endure days of drought. During these times the clouds threaten but bring no rain. Each day the horizon is pregnant with precipitation but the advent of eve leaves them shaking their heads, saying, “Maybe tomorrow.” Just over the hill, however, their neighbors are busy gathering a bountiful harvest. This year’s rains have left them plenty to fill their once bare barns. Yet last year this time they had considered quitting and starting elsewhere. What a difference a season makes.

          In this regard, life is forever instructing us, and one of its most illuminating lessons is this: We should never let the harvest of as few or the drought suffered by many to diminish our diligence. If we endure and adjust accordingly, we will have our time. We will have our season. Difficulties arise, however, when we desire to flourish in another’s season. When we embrace this folly we compare the bounty of our neighbor’s barrenness with the barrenness of our own. After a while we resent their abundance. Moreover, if we aren’t careful we will curse our once cherished soil. All this happens because we fail to realize that every soul has its season and every season has its soul.

          Characteristically, times and seasons are the protectors of our potential. They teach us to reverence our ground and not just the harvest it produces. They also compel us to remove our shoes and realize that the ground we stand upon is holy. Then we can applaud the bounty bestowed upon others because there ground is holy also. Realizing this, envy no longer torments and delay ceases to discourage. Instead we become persuaded that the time is coming when we will flourish also. Until then, we wait and hope quietly for rain. Despite the richness of our soil no one escapes this rotation. Only through it do we avoid the vanity of blooming too fast, too often.