St. Mary's Reflection

To everything, there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.

-Ecclesiastes 3:1

Autumn is upon us, my favorite season. Having grown up on the East Coast, to me autumn represents apple and pumpkin pie, the changing colors of the leaves, and – most importantly – the cool and wet weather that allows me to don my vast collection of sweaters. And even though it is not quite the same here in San Francisco, autumn is a season that I have always looked forward to: the start of the school year where I was teaching, Thanksgiving (the yummiest of the holidays), and all the sports happening simultaneously: the 49ers, the World Series, the start of hockey and the NBA, and even more chances to root on the Valkyries.

And while autumn might be my personal favorite, all the seasons are important: an annual cycle of life and growth that eventually dwindles and dies and brings about new life.

The church has seasons: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost. Church seasons that take us through the year, emphasizing something theologically important each time: Preparation, Incarnation, Manifestation, Reconciliation, Resurrection, Spirit. Annual cycles that remind us of God’s never-failing love for creation though Jesus.

And of course our lives have seasons. Childhood, youth, adulthood. Seasons of busyness, seasons of rest. Seasons of connection, seasons of isolation. Ecclesiastes 3 is famous for its recounting of the seasons of life: “a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance;… a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to throw away; a time to tear and a time to sew.” Seasons of life bring change, and change can be simultaneously exciting and scary, hopeful and filled with questions and anxiety.

As many of you know, I am in a changing season of my own life as I continue my formation to become an Episcopal priest. I have eagerly started my second year of seminary at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University; I am interning this fall as a chaplain at the Sojourn Chaplaincy at San Francisco General Hospital. And as part of my formation, I am serving as the seminarian intern at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Diamond Heights (the church that Mother Elaina and Jessica came from!). This is a new season for me that is bittersweet: my ministry is expanding and deepening, but I am away from my beloved St. Mary’s community on Sunday mornings. Fortunately, I will continue to be present at St. Mary’s on Sunday evenings at Youth Group, a commitment that I will maintain for the foreseeable future.

Change happens with each season of our lives: it’s inevitable. The only thing that does not change in those seasons is God: God remains present and faithful through whatever season we find ourselves: in weeping and laughing, in mourning and dancing, in seeking and losing, in love and in hate, in peace and in war. Jesus promises us in Matthew 28: “I am with you always.” May you and I trust in the goodness and faithfulness of God to bless and guide us through all of the seasons of our lives.

-Michael Stafford, SMV Youth Minister