Friday, March 18, 2022

THREE THINGS.... Three perspectives on the spring season for the spiritual life

The seasons have long served as metaphors for the seasons of our lives: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” (Albert Camus) This blog entry is the third on the influence of the seasons on the spiritual life. Here are the first two, reflections on the fall and winter seasons. 

https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/3610063027887203578/3997009121459356548

https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/3610063027887203578/4721971028410733208


Who doesn't love spring? It's great to come out of the shorter blustery, snowy days of winter and arrive at the longer, warmer, sunshine-filled, daffodil-laden days of spring. Spiritually speaking, "It’s time to lighten things up and shed the many aspects of our ‘Winter coat’, to allow new growth and abundance."* Here are three reflections on the spring season for the spiritual life.

1. A resurrection frame of reference. For Christians, spring is synonymous with resurrection. Easter is the annual celebratory focal point of a long, saving history of divine intervention. Its date is always set on the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox. Easter and the season of spring are permanently bound together. The Resurrection Event embedded in a season of rebirth, reminds us that God continually, perennially, calls us into right relationship with the divine; to live fully into our authentic spiritual nature. In the spring we long to be immersed in the magnificence of the created world after a long winter of being indoors; it is medicine for the soul. The natural world in the springtime reminds us of the eternal character of the relationship between creator and all that has been created; life continues, is born anew, as anticipated, and yet with a fresh enthusiasm, unique to this moment in time. 

2. Re-membering rebirth. We forget. We forget that rebirth is always happening. We need the season of spring to re-connect us to that reality. All things are connected - we, and all our relations, are members of the whole of creation. Spring re-connects us, re-members us, to that interconnectivity. The relationship is not static. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. We die in winter only to be reborn in the spring; we will die again in Christ and rise up again in Christ. We forget and we need re-membering.

3. The significance of beauty. Zach Bush has given me a way to communicate Love in a way I had never been to do before. He speaks frankly about the difficulty of trying to force the feeling of love on difficult situations or people. We can manage it for few minutes, maybe, but we cannot sustain it. We have ideas about love, but it's very confusing, and even more conditional and unsustainable. But we can always find beauty, it's all around us if we have eyes to see it. And when we experience beauty, we experience Love. What does Love feel like? It feels like the experience of beauty. Even in the worst situation, beauty is present. Here are three examples.

During a recent ice story I found myself internally conflicted by the shear danger of the situation set against the sight of the spectacular beauty of the ice on the trees. The trees were falling all around me; the sound of their loud creaking and falling close by was unsettling. The electrical lines came down with ease resulting in the loss of power and water. And yet, I found I could not be angry or upset, or even worried, because the sheer beauty of the ice under the moonlight was all consuming. Surreal and indescribably beautiful, I could hardly take my eyes away from the sight of it. In the morning it took on new heights of perfection and the orchestral sounds of the ice melting off the trees in the sunshine was breath-taking. I will remember that for ever. I strain to recall that it was in the single digits with no heat or water.

When my father was near death, he suddenly sat up in bed and looked right at me as I was sitting at the foot of his bed, and said with perfect clarity and with urgent enthusiasm: "You are so beautiful!" It was as if he'd seen a stunning sunset or beautiful painting - something we could not see. Everyone in the room was stunned. Then he lay back down and never said another word. He died the next day. This event had been completely out of character for him. Our family had for years suffered the unpleasant personality changes that affected him adversely and quite negatively as a side effect of brain cancer. I had chalked up the remark to some final effect of the cancer, but now I believe I have understanding. Love broke through, experienced as beauty. The final "I see the beauty of you", was his final and most complete expression of the experience of authentic Love. 

Many years ago, when I was doing social work, I often had to go into neighborhoods that were worn with decades of poverty. The families I visited were "in the system" because of child abuse or neglect. The conditions were the worst I'd ever seen and shocking to my privileged, socio-ethnic perspective. My heart would bleed and I'd be filled with such sorrow and heart-break for the children, the innocents, who suffered under those living conditions. In one of the neighborhoods there was a huge flowering bush, that in the sub-tropical climate of Florida, was in bloom throughout the protracted spring season, well into summer, year after year. It seemed to me to be like a single spot of color in an otherwise black and white photograph. Once I stopped my car and starred at it, at its audacious show of color and loveliness, and said out loud, I'm so glad you're here. It presented itself, day after day, with such staggering and strange beauty and in such sharp contrast to the human conditions in that place, I knew it could not have been there by accident. I believe now that the divine had placed it there intentionally, as a re-membering.  

Spring is filled with beauty - it is all around us. We are literally bathed in beauty. We are bathed in Love. 


*https://www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/practice/ayurvedic-springtime-routines

Thank you for reading my blog and walking with me in the path of spiritual grace; for your willingness to spend this time with me, as together we learn how to see and be Christ in the world. Rowena + 

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