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UU Faith Works Summer/Fall 2003 Administration
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Tao of Aging
Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley
Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa
Tampa, FLThis GA 2003 workshop invited participants to reflect on the diminishments as well as the blessings of aging. After discussing images of elders from various spiritual traditions and cultures, participants were invited to experience a guided meditation on the Seasons of Our Lives . The meditation evoked poignant memories and these memories were shared as participants reflected on the seasons of their lives. The Fifth Season was the closing refrain to the workshop written by Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley.
Ecclesiastes 3 / "The Fifth Season"
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the heaven
All the seasons have now come and gone;
A time to be born, and a time to die
I have lived and died and now it is the fifth season;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted
The crops have been sown and harvested, the promise fulfilled;
A time to kill and a time to heal
Suffering and salvation—paradoxical rhythms of reality's heart.
A time to break down, and a time to build up
The shantytowns and the skyscrapers have come and gone;
A time to weep and a time to laugh
My tears have filled the oceans, my laughter has covered the earth;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance
Mourning heals the soul. Let the dance of life fill your spirit;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together
The smooth and the heavy stones have each strengthened me, and now it is time to roll the stones away;
A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing
I have known the joy of the human touch, I have known the pain and the necessity of letting go;
A time to seek and a time to lose
We seek that which we think of as necessities, but we lose what are mere desires of the heart.
A time to keep, and a time to throw away
The spirit eliminates that which does not nourish the soul and that which does not support life.
A time to tear and a time to sew
New possibilities abound, the source unknown;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak
Grant us the wisdom to hear the silence and to speak your power through us
A time to love, and a time to hate
Do not cease to cultivate love, for it blots out all our failings.
A time of war, and a time of peace
Even in times of war, may you find a nugget of peace in your spirit.
And in the fifth season, the time of the unknown mystery, may life always follow death.
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