Through the famous verses of Ecclesiastes—"For everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven"—Joan Chittister reflects on timeless themes: the purpose and value of human life, the balance of joy and sorrow, work and rest, love and loss. In meditating on the contrasting seasons of our lives, Chittister shows how human fulfillment and true happiness come, not from getting and having more and more, but from knowing and valuing what we have. Friendship and laughter, patience and sorrow, humility and compassion, from birth through death—all these are Gods gifts to us, the precious moments of life itself. These moments speak to us: "Look at life once more and where you have been blinded, see, and where you have become numb to the point of the senseless, the dead of heart, now glory."