Seasons of Serenity

I chatted last week with a pastor who serves on Martha's Vineyard.  Most likely you've heard of it, but just in case you haven't, it's in New England, off of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.  It's a bigger island than Sanibel, and it has more year round residents.  You can't get there directly by car (unlike Sanibel, which can be accessed by our  three mile causeway) but only by boat, ferry, or airplane.  I suppose you could swim--but the North Atlantic is pretty chilly this time of year!

His "season" is somewhat shorter than ours here.  Their high season there runs through July and August.  Our "high season" runs from January through early April.  Our seasons happen at opposite ends of the calendar!  But our issues and concerns are much the same.  Traffic can be a bear in season, but the pews are full.  It's harder to conduct church business off-season, when so many committee members are up north/down south, bur in some ways that means the work load is lighter.  In some ways our two islands mirror one another!  In fact, we met because we "share" two parishioners.  Folks who summer on the Vineyard, and winter on Sanibel!

My musings here in this transitional time, as "season" draws to a close, are hardly profound.  Yet the truth of the matter is this:  the seasonality of Sanibel impacts pretty much every aspect of my professional, and to a lesser extent, personal, life.  It is one
of the realties that I can choose to fight, or accept. 

And that, of course, is true of every life.  There are factors, conditions, realities, that we cannot change.  We can choose to accept them, learn to work with them, or we can fight them every step of the way.  It would seem to be an obvious choice.  But I guess it's not--otherwise the Serenity Prayer wouldn't be nearly so popular.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."  In season and out!