Gathering the Harvest
My husband and I have a large vegetable garden. It is a lot of work – tilling, planting, weeding, and harvesting and then preserving the harvest. We freeze beans and peas and corn and peppers. We store potatoes and onions and carrots in a cool dark place, and we can tomatoes and salsa. It is a labor of love that we share with our friends and family. All the excess goes to the local food pantry.
One of my teachers, Jim Finley, likes to say that “our job is to assume the position that offers the least resistance to God’s grace.” For me, that is being outside in nature. I spent the summer noticing God’s presence in the crazy call of the sandhill cranes flying over the garden. God was present in the amazing salamander I found while pulling weeds. God was present when I was sitting on the deck with my husband shucking peas and snapping beans. God was present when I was husking corn with my grandkids. God was present when my grandson presented me with a bucket full of black raspberries and asked me to make a pie. All these memories I have savored and stored. I know that soon the days will be short, and the snow will be here. It will be many months before the days are noticeably longer, so I am grateful for this summer and the harvest. In the middle of winter, I want to open a jar of tomatoes or pull a bag of peas from the freezer and remember the beautiful day in summer when they were picked. I want to remember the moment – the sun shining, working next to my husband, watching the hummingbirds, listening to the cranes. God with us.
All or this makes me think of Ignatius. He tells us to savor the times of consolation, to record them and come back to them again and again. I am storing up these memories and writing them down - savoring this day, this moment - knowing God is present. I trust that these moments and memories will be a balm during the desolate times. May it be so.
Tending our Inner Rooms
I was thinking this morning about another difference between spiritual direction and therapy or coaching. The Tetlow/Ackels 12 week guide to the spiritual exercises begins by reminding the pilgrim that "St. Catherine of Siena wrote that there is a room in each one's heart where no man, no woman, no devil, no angel can go." Many of us think of that as the inside room of the heart -- but as I was reading, I started wondering what that space really looks like? Can you close your eyes and envision that sacred space in your own life? Where is the space that is only for you and all that is Holy?
So true confession -- when I first did the spiritual exercises, I had a pretty awesome space that I imagined for this -- it was out in the desert, a bit of hut, fire burning, door open -- safe but permeable. Good spiritual director stuff.
What did I see when I closed my eyes this morning? Maybe an industrial sort of storage space -- empty except for a few boxes. Yikes! The insight for me was that the "front room" of my life is beginning to infect that private space -- the crushing dailyness and overwork -- time to redecorate -- or at least get better lighting.
Therapy and coaching are more about the rooms of our life that others come in and out of -- where one can have goals, or unwanted visitors, or just need a good lock for some of the doors :). Spiritual direction is about tending that private space, where our deepest desires are housed -- where we connect with what is most true and sacred. This morning, take a few minutes and imagine that space -- be honest. Even florescent lighting in the God space can be the exact invitation one needs to change.
—Alison Umminger Mattison
