Turning Over a New Leaf

Posted by: L.E.S. on: August 29, 2013

• In: Everyday Life | Faith | Family | Parenting
• 1 Comment

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…

A time to break down, and a time to build up…

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together…

A time to seek, and a time to lose;

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

A time to tear, and a time to sew(…)

Ecclesiastes 3:1, 3b, 5a, 6, 7a*

Each fall, I enjoy seeing the leaves change colour from green to red, orange and yellow. While I like the brilliant display of colour, I know that it comes through the loss of chlorophyll.

In the same way, when we want to make changes to bring new colour to our lives, we may have to let some things go.

Since I like the predictability of routine, I’ve always struggled with change, but I’m more open to the prospect at New Year’s and at the start of the school year, when it feels like a fresh start.

Now could be a great time to make changes to our routines before they become—well, routine and seemingly set in stone.

• Church: If your church, like mine, has a fall ministry fair, this could be the time to step into a new ministry role. But before taking on yet another task, it’s worth looking at the ways you serve your parish to see where your gifts could best be used. Maybe you’d like to serve as a lector or as part of the music team, but it might mean stepping back from a committee first.

• Work: If you seldom enjoy meals with your family and your PDA buzzes constantly at home, this could be the time to look at how much family time you have. Maybe you could leave work earlier to have dinner with your family and work a bit in the evening. And set your PDA to mute sometimes so that you check your messages in a block rather than after each buzz—something that my husband found a challenge when he took some time off recently but that gave us some uninterrupted family time.

• Children’s activities: This could be a good time to look at your family’s schedule and lighten it up by limiting the number of activities family members take part in. The bonus could be that parents feel less like chauffeurs and mealtimes seem less rushed. In our family, to save driving time, my son and I take music lessons at the same time, and usually at least two of us go to taekwon-do together so we also get to spend time together. My son would like to play other sports and join cadets, but he isn’t willing to drop his other activities to make that happen.

• Home: This could be a good time to purge junk drawers, clothes closets and toy collections to let go of things that have seen better days, that someone else could use, or that are part of projects that aren’t going to happen. And it’s definitely a great time to free up space in children’s rooms for school supplies and a homework area, which is a daunting task I’ll be taking on later.

I pray that this fall we would make room for change to make better use of the time, treasure and talents we’ve been given.

(*Quote from the Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition.)

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Tags: autumn leaves, back to school, Catholic, Christian, faith, religion, routines