I have been thinking lately about the question of timing: of doing or experiencing things at the right or best time.
Being rather impatient by nature, I often feel an inner impulse to hurry up, to get going, to push things. Sometimes this impatience has worked out well for me, but mostly it has not. I’ve come to realize that it’s better to relax and trust that things will happen in their own time rather than forcing things to happen when I think they should.
Fruit is a great metaphor for this. I’m sure the dear reader has tried eating fruit that is unripe. Ugh: too hard, too pale, no flavor. Conversely, it is just as unpleasant, although an entirely different experience, to bite into fruit that is overripe. Ugh! Mushy, smells bad, falls apart.
But fruit that is perfectly ripe? Beautiful. Fragrant. Completely delicious.
Here's one small example of this from my own life. I remember reading The Red Tent when my daughter was a baby. Its themes of pregnancy, child-rearing, and family life were rich and relevant for me. Had I tried to read it before I was a mother, I couldn't have received it in the same way. Beautifully, the book had found its way to me at just the right time.
We live in such a fast-paced culture. Too often it’s ‘get it now’, ‘do it now’, ‘buy it now’. Everything feels so speeded up! It‘s interesting that something called the Slow Movement has developed in response to this (http://www.slowmovement.com/). First it was Slow Food, and then it spread to other areas of living. Perhaps this is one way that people are working to restore a sense of right timing to their lives.
Isn’t this what the famous verses in Ecclesiastes (3:1-8) are all about?
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.
Here's to cultivating the ability to sense when the right time for something has arrived, and to embrace each experience for what it offers.
First published Jan 10, 2013 on silvestreastrology.blogspot.com.
The photo above is from Pixabay (CC0; https://pixabay.com/).