Irish Proverbs – Of Day and Evening

“Dá fhada an lá tagann an tráthnóna” -  “However long the day, the evening will come”

A truly immutable fact of life is that time always marshals on.  The sun always rises and the sun always sets.  Plants grow, people age, life decays.  Time carries the seasons along on its steady back and time ravages the creature’s body.  Time carries with it the events that are good and happy and fulfilling, and time brings tides of woe and sadness and darkness.  

Of all the gifts that time does carry on its wing, one of the most welcome is the evening.  The evening is the time to enjoy one’s labor of the day, when the air softens and cools in its comforting cushion.  The evening is the time to enjoy a hearty meal with one’s family, a time to calm the tired mind and rest the aching feet.  It signals the end of an awful day and allows one’s mind to slough off the stresses that the long, harsh light can bring.

It is the time of harvest, when the fruits of the summer’s work are enjoyed, a time for revelry and joy, a time of sweet and calm contentment.  It is a time of joy and bounty, a time of refreshment and contemplation.  It is a time of thanksgiving, a time to look back while gazing intently forward.   It is a time of waning energy, when Creation prepares itself for slumber and the coming day.

It is a time of sublime and wondrous art, when the sky becomes a celebration of light and color, when shadows melt together and the soothing rays of the setting sun bathe the earth in a lovely cloak of red and stunning orange.  It is the time when the noble beasts as one say their sonorous goodnights to one another and to the trees and stones, the air and grass, the lakes and lordly sky.

In Christ, it is a time of completion and finishing of a lifelong race.  It is a time of joy and glory, when the glorious light of heaven is so tantalizingly close, a time of preparation for the necessary sleep before the everlasting glorious day.

No matter how long the dreary day, time marches on and the glorious evening surely will come.