The linear flow of time is irrevocable. It moves forward without our input or say. Greater sages than I have written on the march of time. I don’t know that I have much to add. What I do propose is a gentle reminder that what is temporal fades with the march of time. The hours pass, the seasons change. We sleep, we wake, we do our thing and repeat.
I stood outside in the sun as the wind blew and the leaves fell all around me, the splendor of their color falling on the ground all about me, it was a magical moment stolen out of time and imprinted on my memory for me to savor again and again. I felt like laughing and chasing the leaves as the wind carried them on their journey towards the ground beneath my feet. All things have a time and a purpose under heaven. This is our time, we are here after all. What is our purpose?
It is a deep philosophical question asked and answered in a myriad of ways. In the end the only one who can answer this question for us is the person we greet in the mirror at the beginning of each day. It is a fluid question, the answer today may be different on the morrow as events transpire and circumstances change.
As the seasons change, the days will get shorter and the temperatures colder. The landscape will take on a bleak shadowy appearance. Often the skies will be a dull grey as weather fronts roll through the atmosphere bringing with them rain, sleet and snow. Winter is a time of closing rank, of pulling together and surviving a hostile environment. The season this year brings with it some difficulties we have never really had to deal with.
I walk through the grocery stores and I see empty shelves. Some favorite products just are not available. Prices for the things that are left are rising even as our incomes do not. A lot of us have made an art out of living pay check to pay check and it is telling on us now as our paychecks have to stretch farther just to break even. We are a mobile people, many of us driving distances to work. As fuel prices rise and the word shortage looms we wonder what the winter will hold for us. I drive an average of 50+ miles a day to and from my work. Living in a rural community, I must drive to the grocery store and other places to take care of my business.
The political unrest and the shenanigans going on on a National and even international scale leave most of us scratching our heads. What is going on? Much of the policy generated lately doesn’t seem to be working and has contributed to our troubles now. We just want to live our lives, go about our business unimpeded and let others do the same. When did it become a thing to mandate this and that and something else? I am not comfortable with this whole idea that the party in power gets all the power, it’s what our forefathers warned us about when they set up our republic.
We have our constitution, we have our rights, but do we have the wherewithal to secure them in the face of forces that seek to deny them to us. Who do we listen to and why do we listen to them? Who gave them the authority they wield with wild abandon if it wasn’t us? The Seasons change, time marches on. We cannot affect that but we can make a difference in the direction we take going forward. Winter will come. We will batten the hatches and weather the storms and then this winter will end as do all seasons. A lot of things will be revealed to us over the next little bit. It does not promise to be an easy winter, but we are not a people who are easily defeated.
Theoriginalneanderthal 