Welcome to the infinitely precious podcast produced by infinitely precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and today I thought I would talk a little bit about transitions. I know I've been talking about a variety of transitions recently on the podcast, transitions that I'm making in my professional life as I leave one congregation in the process of leaving one congregation and moving to another to lead there as a pastor. In my own life, the transition as my what appeared to be my father's recovery after going into the hospital turned into his death and the transition of what it's like to live in the world without my father's physical presence here. So transitions are on my mind.

They have been a part of what's going on in my life recently in a very upfront kind of way, sort of if we're thinking about the world in a not in a microcosmic way, but in a macrocosmic way. And I think sometimes what we learn when we're making little transitions in life can teach us and prepare us and strengthen us to handle the big transitions in life, macro transitions, if you will, in life. And one of the teachers I turned to, it's not natural for me to turn to it, but it's one that's becoming more natural for me and that is the natural world itself, the world in which we live. And the funny thing is recently I've been appreciating seasons. Looking at the four seasons, I live in a part of the world depending upon where you're listening from, you may not experience the same thing, but we have really all four seasons here.

There aren't just two seasons, there are four, summer, fall or autumn, winter, and then spring. And it seems to me that each of them has something to recommend them and something to teach about what do we do in times of transition. How do we look at the world? And the first for me is you can begin with any of them because they're cyclical, any one of the seasons. But I thought I'd start with summer since we're coming into that time right now as we transition.

Summer is that full time of life, bright sunshine, the fullness, and perhaps the time when we're making the memories. So, one of the ways that summer teaches me how to deal with transitions is to celebrate the moments I'm in, to celebrate the bright sunshine and the days filled with light and possibility and hope, the heat. As a person who is cold natured and I live with two people who are warm or hot natured, it's interesting. I always kid that it has to be 90 degrees outside before I can put on a short sleeve shirt. It is pretty close to being true though in terms of what so I appreciate the heat of the summertime, the warmth on my face, and so I try to appreciate the moments that life is giving me.

And summertime is a time to appreciate perhaps the full beauty of nature on display. It's not to say that nature isn't beautiful in all four seasons, but summertime is when the leaves are greenest, where I live anyway, greenest and fullest and brightest and warmest and it's comfortable to be outside and to spend time in nature. It's probably the easiest season. Summer gives way to autumn or fall, and as it moves in that direction and I think about how I process transitions in my life, I think about how despite the fact that it's getting cooler, the leaves on some of the trees change to bright vibrant colors, reds and yellows and purples, deep purples, and in so doing, sort of paint a tapestry of color there. But towards the end of autumn and fall, the trees without much fanfare release their leaves.

They fall to the ground sometimes colored, still sometimes brown as they are passing from where they were to someplace else to becoming part of the soil again, all of that sort of transition, that letting go. So, try to spend some time thinking about what are the things that I need to let go of? What are the things that I'm holding on to or that are holding on to me that I just need to let go of? I need to find a way to just release them. Not because they're not good, but because I can't carry them with me in the same way that I once did.

For me, when it comes to grief related to my father, for instance, I know that I can't just pick up the phone and call him, I can pick up and call my mom and she picks up and calls me with some regularity, but I can't just call him. And there was a quality of conversation that I won't have again and that I have to let go of. I can remember it with great fondness and be thankful for the model that it was, but I do have to let go of my desire for that to continue to happen because I can't have the quality of conversations in the same way because we are, we were two unique people, two unique people sharing our own unique perspective on life. And we've talked about perspective before. And affirming one another, respecting one another and listening to one another.

Dad was good at all of those things. So the particular relationship that I had with my father, have to let go of. Perhaps the memories can linger, but the ability to continue to enact it, have to let go of. Autumn gives way to winter. Now, I have to be honest with you, I think that winter is a season we like to avoid.

I think as human beings we tend to like to avoid it now, of course there are people who cope with it well and from my hot natured family members, winter is a time when they feel the least caught up and struggling with the temperature. They dress in layers, but they can remove more of their layers than I can when they deal with that because the cold is something they're used to. But in addition to the cold, winter is a time when things lie dormant, when you kind of recover. And I think in times of transition, you need moments that you can sit down and despite the fact for instance, in my professional transition, we're packing lots and lots of boxes, There have to be moments when you just sit down and enjoy a cup of tea or a cup of coffee. You have to slow down enough to kind of let yourself feel the feels and be present in them, perhaps feel a bit numb, perhaps not feel anything, or perhaps feel lots and lots of things in that slower dormant period.

I think that it's the hardest period perhaps because we think, let's distract ourselves, let's do something different, I want to be in a different place than this, and we're interested in rushing as quickly as possible through winter so we can get to spring and the promise of new life. But I encourage you and I'm encouraging myself not to rush through this winter period. Yes, it's still spring outside, but inside of me there are some places that are in kind of a dormant place, that are kind of resting, and I think giving ourselves time in the midst of grief to just sit, just be in the midst of the transition so that we can draw strength for whatever is next. Of course, that final season, the one that I haven't talked about, it's not the final season, it's a cycle, so it just goes around and around. But spring is a time when new growth happens, when things start to spring up, when what was dormant starts to come back to life.

I encourage you to give yourself time in the wintertime, but as new life starts to come, be particularly attentive to what is rising. Is it new? Is it fresh? Is it the return of some old things in new ways? Be attentive to those things.

So, let the seasons teach you some lessons about how to go into transitions. One thing that I note about and D. H. Lawrence did the same in a poem is that when that nature does not complain about the changes that are happening. It knows that changes are a part of things and roles with them.

I'm not saying don't complain. I am saying, however, that learning to deal with the things that are happening in our lives as things change moment to moment, day to day, and in the big seasons of our lives when we are moving from one sort of big part of our lives to another part of our lives that will become the big part. Give yourself time as the seasons do to settle in to wherever you find yourself. If you're in the summer, you can use that creative energy. If you are in the fall, can ask what needs to be let go.

If you're in the winter, you can sit back and try to just be with whatever is going on inside of you and as spring emerges, you can look for creative ways, ways that you've been creative in the past, but new ways to be creative as well so that you might engage life in an ongoing way. Life is filled with transitions. Some we ask for, some that are thrust upon us, some that just naturally happen. In any case, in all of those places, we are invited to be where we are and to engage the world as best we can. Remember wherever you are in the midst of transitional reality that you are infinitely precious, unconditionally loved for the gift you already are and that you are a gift no matter how you're feeling, no matter what season you're in, you are a gift.

Be the gift that you are, give yourself the freedom to experience where you find yourself as you move on, move in, move around the transitions of your life. Until the next time, I wish you all the best.