For Everything a Season: Simple Musings on Living Well
Filled with a cast of lovable, quirky characters, punctuated with simple wonders, the everyday truths found in this book offer much needed clarity to our own befuddled world. No matter where you live, no matter what your season, come along for the journey.\ When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people....
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Filled with a cast of lovable, quirky characters, punctuated with simple wonders, the everyday truths found in this book offer much needed clarity to our own befuddled world. No matter where you live, no matter what your season, come along for the journey. When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people. Fourteen books later, with more than a million books in print, Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porch.
Chapter One\ A Time to Be Born\ Birth Stories\ I was born deep in the winter. Each birthday my father phones to recount the events surrounding my birth. Our sons are asleep in their bedroom under the eaves. My wife and I are sitting in front of the fireplace; she is doing her needlework and I am reading a mystery. The phone rings. I ease out of my chair, walk to the kitchen, pick up the phone and say, “Hello.”\ It is my father. No “Hello.” No “How are you?” Just the same question each birthday: “Have I ever told you what happened the night you were born?”\ “I don't believe so,” I tell him.\ “Well, it was eight o'clock in the evening when your mother went into labor. I remember the time because Gunsmoke was just starting. There was a terrible snowstorm. We could barely see the neighbor's house for the snow. We got in the car to drive to the hospital in the city. Our defroster didn't work, and I couldn't see through the windshield. I had to drive the whole twenty miles with my head out the window. It was so cold my face was frostbitten. I ran a red light and a policeman pulled me over and said he was going to give me a ticket. I told him to hurry up because my wife was going to have a baby. The policeman said, ‘Follow me!' and he turned on his lights and siren and off we went, all the way to the hospital where you were born. You had a police escort to the hospital. Not everyone can say that. That makes you special.”\ When I was a child, my mother would tuck me into bed, kiss my forehead, then leave the room. My father would come inand sit at the foot of my bed and ask, “Say, have I ever told you what happened the night you were born?”\ “I don't believe so,” I would tell him.\ He would lean back, close his eyes, and conjure up that memory'the snow and the swirling red lights and the siren's wail. I've heard that story nearly forty times and I never tire of it. Every year I wonder the same things: Will they make it in time? Will I be all right? Of course I will be, because here I am. But the way my father tells the story leaves the outcome in doubt and I never quite relax until the story concludes with me safely delivered.\ In my teenage years, when my father and I were at odds, I would remember how he suffered frostbite to bring me safely into this world…and my heart would soften. I was a skinny child, the target of bullies. When beaten up and ridiculed, I would take comfort in the fact that I was ushered into this world with a police escort and they were not. It was a wonderful gift my father gave me, that story. He could not give me wealth or fame to ease my way, so he gave me that story and it provided a deep consolation.\ My chief regret is that I am not able to offer my sons a similar story. Their births were routine, insofar as a child's birth is ever routine. We had sufficient time to drive to the hospital. The roads were clear. The car ran smoothly. My wife was unruffled. The doctors and nurses were competent and our children were delivered with a minimum of pain. I didn't feel a thing.\ When my older son turned five years old, he asked me, “Daddy, what happened when I was born?” I didn't want to tell him the truth'that as births go, his was unremarkable, with only one peculiarity. When he was due to emerge, I was in the hospital restroom reading a back issue of Reader's Digest. Drama in Real Life. A man ran off the road and over a cliff, where he lay broken and dazed for three days before spelling out HELP with rocks and sticks. Spotted by an airplane, he was rescued and lived to share his dramatic story.\ As I finished reading his harrowing tale, the nurse knocked on the door and said, “Your wife is having your baby. You better get out here.” So I came out and five minutes later, so did my son. That is the truth, though it isn't the kind of story I want to tell my son. It is not the stuff of legend. So when he asked me what happened when he was born, I kissed his forehead and took my place at the foot of his bed.\ “Yours was a very special birth,” I told him. “Quite miraculous. It was the middle of winter. It was snowing. We were sitting in the living room late in the evening. Your mother went into labor. We climbed into the car and made our way toward the hospital. The roads were terribly slick. As we were rounding a curve, we slid off the road and over a cliff, where our car came to rest at the bottom. We were dazed and bruised. Your mother was pinned in the wreckage and couldn't move, but I could, just barely. I managed to climb through a window and gather some sticks and rocks, which I used to spell out HELP. The next morning, an airplane, circling overhead, spotted us and we were rescued. We were rushed to a hospital where you were safely delivered. And that, son, is the story of your birth.”\ He swelled with pride. He'd had no idea his beginnings were marked with such drama. “Tell me again,” he pleaded.\ “Next year,” I told him. “You'll have to wait until your next birthday.” I kissed him good night and went downstairs to sit in my chair. My wife was there.\ “What were you and Spencer talking about?” Joan asked.\ For Everything a Season. Copyright © by Philip Gulley. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Preface: Disclaimers and Dedications8For Everything, a Season: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8111A Time to Be Born: Birth Stories132A Time to Die: Concerning Christian Burial213A Time to Plant: Marvin294A Time to Pluck Up What Is Planted: The Harvest375A Time to Kill: A Careful Subtraction446A Time to Heal: One September517A Time to Break Down: These Fleeting Years588A Time to Build: Concerning Screen Doors and Shaker Chairs669A Time to Weep: Concerning Home Maintenance7310A Time to Laugh: Sandlot Baseball8111A Time to Mourn: The Gravedigger8912A Time to Dance: The Pastor's Short Course9613A Time to Cast Away Stones: Vanity of Vanities, All Is Vanity10414A Time to Gather Stones Together: On Patios and Porches11115A Time to Embrace: A Preschool Meditation11816A Time to Refrain from Embracing: Things I Can't Abide12517A Time to Seek: A Quiet Satisfaction13318A Time to Lose: The Royal Theater14019A Time to Keep: The Old Cigar Box14720A Time to Cast Away: Jubilee15421A Time to Rend: Pretenders16122A Time to Sew: A Joining Together16923A Time to Keep Silence: On Good Shoes, Old Friends, and Silence17724A Time to Speak: Yearly Meeting18525A Time to Love: Loving Our Neighbor19226A Time to Hate: When We Were Children20027A Time for War: Civil Defense20728A Time for Peace: Summer213
