Preserving

It’s that time of year when the fig tree in our yard, which has grown exponentially every year since we have lived in this home, really starts showing its fruits. My husband, a tried and true Southerner, is a blur of canning, and loves to make fig preserves and syrups, and I marvel at the intricate process and his obsession with it. Thank God for the greenness of earth, which offers us so much in its simplicity to keep us in tune and interested in creation, grounding us in reality. 

 I thought of this when I realized this week I’d completed my goal of achieving spiritual direction certification, something I’ve been thinking about and working toward since 2016 (perhaps longer even). Now I’m unable to see life, to see humans and their intricacies, in any other way. I find it hard to listen in any other way than with this attention St Ignatius in his 500 year old practice of the Spiritual Exercises has taught me, though I am finding this voice present outside my sphere of religious experience.  I can see the ways becoming attentive and open to God's meaning in our lives yields much fruit. And I have integrated this among many other approaches and tools I have experienced in my life, among them Franciscan, Dominican, and Diocesan communal experiences. In time I’d come to preserve, too, and keep the lessons and allow them to marinate with each other, becoming more flavorful in the process. I trusted that process, and now I am uncanning and savoring fruits long ago planted and flourished. 

 It’s been a rough few months since I last posted, not just for me, but for everyone—I can see and feel this around me. We’re all far more burnt out than perhaps we acknowledge. But I think it only takes a small step away from ourselves, daily, that leads us further into healing and coming closer to our Creator God. Join me in stepping forward, together or alone, preserving as we go along this fire of creativity inside each of us.