In this season

Grant Me Your Sense of Timing

by Ted Loder

O God of all seasons and and senses,

grant me your sense of timing

            to submit gracefully

                 and rejoice quietly

                       in the turn of the seasons,

 In this season of short days and long nights,

            of gray and white and cold,

teach me the lessons of waiting:

            of the snow joining the mystery

                 of the hunkered-down seeds

                      growing in their sleep

                         watched over by gnarled-limbed, grandparent trees

                               resting from autumn’s staggering energy;

                                    of silent, whirling earth

                                         circling to race back home to the sun.

O God, grant me your sense of timing.

 In this season of short days and long nights,

            of gray and white and cold,

teach me the lessons of endings:

            children growing, friends leaving,

               jobs concluding,

                  stages finishing,

                      grieving over,

                          grudges over,

                              blaming over,

                                 excuses over.

O God, grant me your sense of timing.

 In this season of short days and long nights,

            of gray and white and cold,

teach me the lessons of beginnings

     that such waitings and endings

         may be a starting place,

             of planting of seeds

                 which bring to birth

                       what is ready to be born—

                             something right and just and different,

                                    a new song,

                                          a deeper relationship

                                                a fuller love—

                                                     in the fullness of your time.

O God, grant me your sense of timing.