A time to every purpose

Mulling over how my current quest to absorb effective processing techniques is complicated by having acquired warped ones that inevitably lead to doomed efforts.  Have to dig out long-time, rotten-at-the-roots traits AND welcome ones that consistently yield an intended constructive outcome.

Far from being discouraged being finally settling down to this endeavor at the ripe age of 62, am energized by the awareness that NOW seems to be the earliest I could have started winnowing out unproductive patterns, replacing them with ones that nurture.  

Puts me in mind of the parable of the wheat & the chaff 

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ ”

This parable hits home in both my personal & professional lives.  In my personal life, it keeps me from having a sense of despair over being such an age before setting out to learn embrace use my unique productive process.  Professionally, it brings home that we frequently can't address major glitches in our lives until we are old enough to have a clearer perspective - practically impossible in earlier years.

We have to wait for the wheat & the chaff to mature before we can see what is wholesome & what will choke the life out of what it stands near.  Try to attend to it before the difference is apparent & we'll root out the nurturing as well as the weed.  

Without enough knowledge & awareness, we can end up doing what I did when Mom was off on her first trip to visit Mike & Kerry in Australia.  As a "welcome home" surprise, I weeded out the front garden.  Lovely intention, but I was not a gardener.  On her return, she was greeted with a thriving patch of wildly blooming weeds & every one of the things she'd planted carefully, lovingly rooted out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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