When I decided to stop writing daily after doing it every day in 2021, I was aware that I was stepping into a new season. I knew that daily writing was for a particular period – the “zemawn” time mentioned in Ecclesiastes 3:1 where the author confidently declares that “there is an appointed time (a season – a “zemawn” in the Hebrew) for everything.”
2021 was my daily writing zemawn, and when the calendar turned to the new year, I knew it was a new season.
The beauty of seasons is that they happen without much help from us. Summer, fall, winter, and spring roll around every single year, with no help from us.
Our work happens in the rhythms that we practice in those seasons.
During the season of daily writing, my rhythms included writing before 9a with a cup of coffee next to me and a candle burning beside my computer. All of those helped me accomplish things in that season.
So while seasons happen without our help, rhythms don’t happen without effort. This new year has shown me just how powerful they are once they’re established, and how difficult they are to establish.
My writing is all over the place. No rhythm, no consistency. The result? I’m not writing my best stuff. The solution? Set a rhythm that fits with the season.
This make sense, right? Think of yard work as a rhythm. What and how we do it has to match the season we’re in. After all, no one is mowing their yard in the middle of winter. That’s when we’re blowing our yards (either to get rid of snow or the leaves that we didn’t blow in the fall).
I’m committed to finding a new rhythm that matches the new season. It’s a season of podcasting as well as writing. It’s a season of hidden writing more than public writing.
It’s. A. New. Season.
Thankfully, we know from the rest of chapter three in Ecclesiastes that all the rhythms fit somewhere in those seasons. Let’s keep figuring out where.
Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash
