I used to watch that 45 rpm record spin on the turntable, the green apple label a blur as Mary Hopkin sang “to everything turn, turn, turn…there is season, turn, turn, turn…”

And as my garden finally starts to yield fruit at the far end of this cool summer, a change of seasons is obvious in our lives, too, as my husband now lives with me after five years of marriage, my son’s fiance posts engagement photos on Facebook, and one best friend moves from 4 hours away to 14 and my other dearest friend moves from New York to 4 hours away.

When you garden, your awareness of change is heightened, for the seasons dictate more than vacation plans and pulling clothes out of storage. You are forever watching the sky, testing the moisture of earth, and overseeing the growth and death of things whose fruitfulness depends on change.

As does ours…

Ecclesiastes 3

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace;

9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?

10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.