Spiritual Seasons

"He is like a tree

planted by streams of water

that yields its fruit in its season."

- Psalm 1:3

"And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed." - Genesis 1:8

When I first moved here from the East Coast, I was amazed at all the fruit trees. I'm certain people here take them for granted-- where I used to live, you don't see fruit grow on trees. Now we walk around our neighborhood and see pomegranates, pears, apricots, lemons, apples, guava, oranges, just hanging off tree branches. I think to myself, this is God everywhere, God the gardener revealing something of Himself to me through his creation. After all, the first thing he did after creating man was plant him a garden. Is it an accident that the first person who saw Jesus in his resurrected body mistook him for a gardener? What secrets of the spiritual life are here? Why does the Psalmist compare a blessed man to a tree bearing its fruit in season?

One thing I've been mulling over is how seasons speak to our conception of the spiritual journey over time. Most of us would probably like to think of spiritual growth as relatively linear, an outcome that functions in terms of input and output, controllable variables, measurable slopes. But seasons exist in a whole other language of time: certain, but not necessarily controllable, and much slower than we are comfortable with. There is input and output-- a plant cannot flourish in the dark, nor a tree start without a seed-- but ultimately, the nature of the outcome is not precisely in our control. Seasons operate in kairos-time, not chronos-time. Chronos-time is "clock time": minutes and hours, discrete units. Kairos-time is "God's time," what Nouwen describes as "moments ripe for intended purpose," time as part of the "shaping hands of God," time as not something to get through or manage, but "the arena of God's good work in us." It is how Jesus often spoke of time.

So, looking for the seasons in our lives does not mean so much glancing at our watches, as discerning God's movement and timing in our lives. It's an entirely different kind of skill, this kind of looking. It requires a certain kind of attention. Nouwen defines discernment as "a spiritual understanding and an experiential knowledge of how God is active in daily life that is acquired through disciplined spiritual practice."

This makes me think too how the spiritual journey is rhythmic, repetitive. Seasons recur. I tell myself, Esther, there is no shame in periods of darkness, difficulty, or doubt, in the winter-times of the spiritual life-- just as there is no end to the moments bursting with joy, periods of new life and victory. At the last prayer retreat, we were given a table describing the four seasons of the spiritual life: for each one, we asked, what is God's work in this season? What is the beauty to look for in this season? (in the spring, faithfulness and expansiveness; in the summer, dynamism of abundant life; in the fall, beauty of change and being present; in the winter, things laid bare, quiet and rest) How can I respond to God's work in this season?

There is a tendency in our modern life to berate ourselves for needing to relearn truths. To lapse into anxiety if we don't see immediate or outward results. To fall back into our own subconscious expectations for timing and control in our lives. But the answer is in the trees budding into fruit all around us. The trees roots go deep, invisibly drawing from the endless stream of water, producing growth that happens all year round. But the fruit is seasonal. It's a promise, but it arrives in its own time.