To every thing turn, turn, turn,
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
A time to be born, a time to die…………..”

Not many top 20 hits take their inspiration from the Jewish Scriptures! (Another one, from the same era, was Boney M’s ‘By the rivers of Babylon’.) I admit that I knew that song long before I knew the source of the words.
Verse 3 of the book of Ecclesiastes is an ever-popular reading at funeral masses in the Catholic tradition. I think the words ‘A time to be born and a time to die’ are meant to console the family of the deceased. They state that death is inevitable, but apart from this obvious point I cannot understand why they should be read at a burial service. Words like , “there is a time to kill, a time to hate, a time for war”, when read at a funeral service , never sit easy with me. I think that they are inappropriate in the context of a funeral service; however they are very appropriate and very wise when we contemplate the nature of life. These words from the book of Ecclesiastes tell us that life has a pattern and rhythm of its own; life has its difficult times, life also has its good times; if we are to live fully we must learn to recognise this and to come to accept it and, more importantly, to learn from it.
Life is made up of the entire spectrum of every situation we can imagine. It is not, nor is it meant to be, a bland, safe monotony, nor should we expect that life will consist of an increasing feeling of contentment. That is, we need to know that when our basic needs for food and shelter have been met, an increasing amount food and a bigger house or two houses will not make us twice as contented. As Ecclesiastes tells us, every life is birth and death, sowing and reaping, weeping and laughter, building up and breaking down; it is every possibility under the sun. This reading calls on us to contemplate the enormity and the sheer wonder of this life that we have been given. It tells us that we should abandon all our boring, repetitive expectations and embrace whatever comes our way. There is good reason that Ecclesiastes is regarded as a wisdom book in the Jewish Scriptures. Let’s look again at the words “there is a time to be born”, and think of the wonder of how all of us came to be together here this morning. Our universe is millions of years old; think of how life on earth has evolved through eons of time; think of the thousands of generations who have passed before us. Science tells us that all life evolved from the Big Bang. So we are made of the stuff of stars. After hundreds of millions of years events have conspired that we are here together in this place sharing this wonderful world. This is truly amazing, and, yes, we will die, but this knowledge should enable us to live deliberately and not to pass our days in a vacant daze.
We have all experienced the flows and rhythms of life. We have known times in our lives when nothing seems to go right – by ‘right’ I mean nothing seems to go in the direction we would like it to go; none of our plans come to fruition. We have also known times when things do seem to fall into place for us. Like the gambler at a roulette table, there are times when all our numbers come up and we believe we cannot put a foot wrong. These rhythms in life come of their own volition; we cannot call them into place nor can we dispel them at will. This is well demonstrated at the Olympics. How many athletes went to Beijing ready to win a medal only to lose their form for the one single competition that mattered? Other, less talented, competitors hit lucky on the day and went away with the medal. Perhaps some of us have the belief that we experience more than our fair share of disappointments and that others of our acquaintance get the lion’s share of good fortune. We think why poor me? But, then again, why not?
But what if, instead of bemoaning what we perceive as bad luck, we change our perception of the events in our lives? How would we see our life if we accept that everything that happens to us has a real purpose; that it has come to us for a reason? I really believe that this life is not the result of a series of random chances and occurrences. I believe that, to put it in old fashioned terms, that God has a plan for me. At times God’s plan for me is not the one I have for myself. I may persist in following my own plan, but this I find does not bring contentment and in the long term just does not work out. I have no independent proof of this belief in the existence of a Divine Plan. It is something I was told from childhood, but reviewing my life I have found it to be true. I have found that when unexpected opportunities came to me and I said yes to them, that even though they seemed to be very frightening at the time, with hindsight, they have become treasures in my life. Growing up and as a university student, I had no idea of what career I wanted to follow. I qualified as an accountant but knew that this type of work brought me a salary but did not bring me fulfilment. Being brought up in the Catholic tradition meant that Ministry never crossed my mind. When Bill suggested that I should train as a Minister I knew straight away that Ministry was my calling. In retrospect I found that providence had provided me with those things that are really essential to the work of Ministry.
For example, many years ago, the employment agency I had registered with asked me to attend an interview for a position with a firm of accountants. During the interview I was told that my prospective employer was a firm of funeral undertakers!! Had I know the identity of the employer I would probably not have attended that interview. As it happened, the job offer was very attractive and I took the job. The experience of meeting bereaved people has been invaluable to me working in ministry. It was where I learned how to conduct a funeral service, and as Denis Conway said, “Bridget you do misery great”!!
This has been my experience I wonder if any of you have trodden a similar path.
The words “a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace” on first reading seem to sanction hatred and the pursuit of war, something that liberal Christians should find unacceptable. Surely war and hatred are against all Christian teaching? However, instead of interpreting these words as justification for hatred and wars, what if we were to take them as an acknowledgement that within each human being there exists a part of our personality that can be the exact opposite to the respectable face we present to the world? I think that a better interpretation of the words would be that we are all capable of hatred and of doing dark deeds; we would be very foolish to deny this. Love and hate are closely intertwined in the human psyche. Think of our interpersonal relationships; it is the people to whom we are most committed who can cause us the most hurt. No matter how civilised our interpersonal relationships are, and no matter how much we love the other, there will always be times when we could cheerfully strangle them – partners, parents and children. Anyone who denies this is either foolish or in the very early stages of a new relationship!
Making ourselves aware that life will have its good and its difficult times should not make us depressed or downhearted. It should give us a perspective that tells us that when times are difficult we can be sure that the bad times will pass, that the sun will come out again. We cannot choose what life sends our way; our only choice is in how we react to what happens in our life. Accepting the bad times, living through them, learning from them, will enrich our lives. Running away from difficulties, escaping from them by using drink, or drugs, or by shutting down our emotions, will not take the hurt and sorrow away, but it will deny us the opportunity to grow and develop into more loving human beings. A woman writing about her reactions to difficulties that she had recently encountered said: “I feel that God has moved me up a class and just now the desk feels too big for me”. We have all experienced that ‘lost’ feeling at some time or another; our task is to acquire wisdom to know that in time we will grow into the desk. I once heard an old lady speak about her life - a life which had had a good number of difficult times. She was a very cheerful old lady. “That’s life,” she said. “You might as well sing grief as cry it”. She had absorbed the knowledge that life is made up of good times and difficult times.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we used that experience of feeling lost, hurt and afraid to its full potential? Difficulties in life have the potential to enable us to empathise with others and to love more fully. They also have the potential make us into bitter, nasty individuals if we let them. Being aware of our human nature enables us to make decisions about how we want our lives to be. The books in the Jewish scriptures are a wonderful source of wisdom concerning human nature. Use them, read them as poetry, as descriptions of the human condition, and you will find in them a rich source of treasure.

Rev. Bridget Spain
Dublin Unitarian Church