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by Bonnie Bowman Thurston (Author)
The fruit of her determined prayer for a way to give her spirit time to catch up, this pithy reflection on the qualities of time will introduce highly respected biblical scholar, professor, pastor, widow, friend, and author Bonnie Thurston to a wider audience - everyone who is time-pressed and deadline pressured. The news is good: Time is the creation of a generous God who always provides not only the bare essentials, but usually a feast. As the writer of Ecclesiastes mused: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. It is with her trust in this abundance that Thurston explores the mystery of time and the rediscovery of the Judeo-Christian understanding of time as God's sacred and bountiful gift. She looks at time from both a historical and a theological perspective; she studies seasons as measured by the liturgical cycle, the monastic day, the jubilee year, and the Sabbath; and she ponders the meaning of time participles - familiar phrases such as finding time, making time, spending time, and marking time. With her encouragement, the reader will discover that there is enough time - if we redeem the time by reclaiming the Sabbath, the time built into the rhythm of creation by God for rest and re-creation. 'To Everything a Season' offers reflection exercises to help us understand both how we think about and how we use time, as well as suggestions for ways of making Sabbath in the midst of our own crowded lives. The result is an invitation and a recipe for living in the present moment, in God's eternal Now.
Author Biography
Bonnie Thurston is a native of southern West Virginia, and lives near Wheeling, WV, having resigned the William F. Orr Professorship in New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 2002. She earned the BA in English from Bethany College, and MA and PhD degrees from the University of Virginia. Bonnie has written or edited eighteen theological books and many articles, has contributed to reference works in New Testament and taught at the university level for thirty years. Her scholarly interests in New Testament include the gospels of Mark and John, the Deutero-Pauline canon and, more generally, the history of Christian Spirituality and prayer. She was ordained in 1984 and has served as co-pastor, pastor, or interim of five churches and twice in overseas ministries. She is an experienced spiritual director and retreat leader. Her poetry frequently appears in religious periodicals, and she has authored five volumes of verse. Bonnie is a widow, an avid reader, gardener and cook, enjoys classical music and loves the West Virginia hills.
