00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:13.040Hello again friends, this is Dick Foth and it is a September morning.00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:20.380I'm sitting outside and looking at blue sky and bluey clouds, listening to the sounds in the distance of airplanes.00:00:21.260 --> 00:00:25.120There's an air show in northern Colorado, so you may hear a few jets.00:00:25.820 --> 00:00:28.000But I'm thinking this morning about life.00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:32.279And you say, well, isn't that what you usually talk about in the spring?00:00:32.580 --> 00:00:36.120Well, I'd like to think I talk about it or think about it every day, but it's true.00:00:36.220 --> 00:00:42.460We think about springtime being the blooming of things and the starting of a new season and all of that.00:00:43.420 --> 00:00:49.860But I've been thinking about life in no small part because we have five family members who in this month have birthdays.00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:59.880My wife, Ruth, for starters, my son, Chris, daughter, Jenny, grandson, Noah, and great-granddaughter, Nora.00:01:01.080 --> 00:01:13.940And it's interesting when you read this old Hebrew writing of Ecclesiastes, which if you're feeling a bit down, you probably don't want to go to Ecclesiastes and readit today.00:01:14.180 --> 00:01:22.080because the writer speaks of the entity, the entirety of life as meaningless.00:01:22.450 --> 00:01:33.360He has this line at the start of the third chapter that says, there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the sun.00:01:35.360 --> 00:01:45.320And when we think about seasons and we're in the third week of September, How can one not think about what we call the autumnal equinox?00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:46.340That's a mouthful.00:01:46.620 --> 00:01:51.160That means that's when fall starts, September 22nd.00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:55.720And the autumnal equinox is that time, and there are two times in the year.00:01:55.860 --> 00:02:01.980One is in March called the vernal equinox, and this one, the equal amount of light and darkness.00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:05.560Well, that's a fascinating thought.00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:09.979But I have to admit that I like light better than darkness.00:02:10.940 --> 00:02:16.420and whether it's metaphorical or whether it's real, I like light better than darkness.00:02:16.540 --> 00:02:26.980And so from this point on, it continues to get longer times of darkness than of daylight.00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:39.520Poets and adult development or human development students and scholars would talk this way about a person's life.00:02:40.480 --> 00:02:59.420These are the seasons. Childhood is spring. Adolescence is summer. Fall is middle age. And winter is old age. So what you have today is a winter guy talking about middleage.00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:13.480Actually, I just want to reference the point that life is not only full of joy and celebration and rites of passage and all of that.00:03:14.580 --> 00:03:20.820It also has times of immense frustration and tragedy.00:03:21.100 --> 00:03:34.700And just last week, we memorialized again September 11, 2001, when thousands of people were killed in that one day in New York City and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania,in Washington, D.C.00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:44.320In the middle of that, last week, essentially, you have the horrific killing of Charlie Kirk in Utah.00:03:45.620 --> 00:03:55.900And overseas, you have Gaza going on and Ukraine going on and other places, numerous places around where we say, "This is senseless.00:03:56.800 --> 00:04:02.180This doesn't, it's not rational." Well, war is not a rational thing.00:04:02.920 --> 00:04:04.460Murder is not a rational thing.00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:09.840In the middle of that, where do we find hope?00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:16.440I find hope in the fact that life goes beyond this.00:04:17.780 --> 00:04:20.540That's where I stand, if you will.00:04:21.380 --> 00:04:33.040That I believe that life is eternal, that it goes beyond this human condition and the deterioration or the sudden taking of a human life.00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:40.120And because of that, there's something to be said for where we find it.00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:55.240That passage in the Gospels where the followers of Jesus, a handful of men, said, teach us to pray.00:04:57.550 --> 00:04:59.720Other people have taught their disciples to pray.00:05:00.270 --> 00:05:01.400You teach us to pray.00:05:03.760 --> 00:05:09.840And it came to be known in our time and before as the Lord's Prayer.00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:20.740If you come from a liturgical or a Catholic tradition, for example, it's called the Our Father because that's how it starts.00:05:21.880 --> 00:05:30.020And in that, Jesus gives both the large picture and the small picture of what life is.00:05:30.020 --> 00:05:30.900And it goes like this.00:05:31.900 --> 00:05:36.640Our Father, and this is the Elizabethan English, King James Version, it goes like this.00:05:37.700 --> 00:05:42.960Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed or holy be thy name.00:05:44.350 --> 00:05:50.640Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.00:05:52.130 --> 00:05:59.940Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.00:06:01.220 --> 00:06:07.180And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.00:06:09.180 --> 00:06:14.400For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.00:06:15.760 --> 00:06:15.920Amen.00:06:19.020 --> 00:06:25.100It fascinates me that the first few words of the book of Genesis are, let there be light.00:06:26.340 --> 00:06:32.120There was darkness, there was chaos, and light chased it away and helped bring order.00:06:33.760 --> 00:06:45.080In a time when it feels for many of us chaotic, perhaps for some meaningless, I pray that again.00:06:46.820 --> 00:07:00.200Lord, let there be light in a dark time with insights and actions that bring life that goes beyond today to the people around us.00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:05.960For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.00:07:07.640 --> 00:07:07.880Amen.00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:11.480God bless you. Catch you next time.
