Bearing Fruit

In the garden this morning I am shown again that there can be no fruitfulness without dying to self, without being prised-apart by the hands of a loving Creator.

We live in a society that demands of us that we resist aging – and so deny ourselves the opportunity of fruitfulness, of investing in others. It is not because our culture is superficial that we prize eternal youth. It is because we prize eternal youth that we have become superficial.

How can we possibly submit to those hands, to that process, unless our eyes are opened to a bigger Story than our Self?

The invitation to enter into communion with

the ripe Spirit, who gives life to the world;

the pierced and wounded Son;

the undefended Father, burst open by love.

(The seed pods of the Iris open out revealing three chambers, a Trinitarian crown of glory.)

“Until we walk with despair, and still have hope, we will not know that our hope was not just hope in ourselves, in our successes, in our power to make a difference, in our image of what perfection should be. We need hope from a much deeper Source. We need a hope larger than ourselves.” Richard Rohr

“When the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more, when they touch my mind), when the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off strikes from without or is born within me; when the painful moment comes in which I suddenly waken to the fact that I am ill or growing old; and, above all that last moment when I feel I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive within the hands of the great unknown forces that have formed me; grant that I may understand that it is you (provided only that my faith is strong enough) who is painfully parting the fibres of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within yourself.” Teilhard de Chardin

Nunc Dimittis (The Song of Simeon)

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace:

your word has been fulfilled.

My own eyes have seen the salvation

which you have prepared in the sight of every people;

A light to reveal you to the nations

and the glory of your people Israel.