Seasons – Aspirational Adventures

Aberlleiniog Castle, Anglesey. Photographed by myself October 2024

I am not going to attempt to unpack the story about Jesus cursing the fig tree [Mark 11:11-25] though too often it has been used to say that we should be fruitful in all seasons. Well just is daft.

The trees in this picture are coming to the end of their fruitful season. There berries are being eaten by birds and other wildlife, their seeds falling to the ground either to be stored by squirrels or to maybe grow into new trees. They will soon lie fallow with no leaves and nothing much going on that we can see. Though as we all know a lot goes on with both ourselves and wildlife when it looks as if we’re sleeping. Then the spring will come and leaves will slowly appear and soon the trees will be covered in leaves and flowers or catkins or something that attracts the pollinators. They are still not fruitful. It is a very short period in a tree’s life cycle when it is fruitful.

So if The Creator of The Universe made the natural world like that why on earth do we, in our busy 21st Century minds, think we should be fruitful 24-7-365? Surely The Creator intends for us to have fruitful periods and fallow periods, periods of rest and periods of growth? Isn’t that what being “natural” looks like? And I don’t know about you but I would like to look as natural as possible.

But to be natural we need to be like the trees and plants and animals and be in touch with our bodies and what they are asking of us. And because we are human beings too we need to be in touch with our hearts and be able to hear what they are saying without all the dross of “shoulds” and “oughts” of upbringing and culture.

So let us all be brave and be restful when we should be, bursting with new growth when we should be, and then, I think when it is time of us to be fruitful we can be totally committed to being fruitful because we’ve done the rest and the new growth we were meant to do beforehand.

Posted on https://godspacelight.com/2023/07/26/52309/ This morning – 26th July 2023

[Photograph is of my friend, Tessa, who loved life. This was taken by myself 3 months before she died. The UK November weather decided to seasonally sunny so she could enjoy her last trip to the seaside]

In the UK we love a good moan about “seasons”. We bemoan the summer when it gets too hot, too wet, too windy, too cold. We bemoan the winter when it doesn’t get enough snow, too much snow, rain, wind. You get the picture. We Brits love a good natter about the weather and how it isn’t doing what it’s meant to be doing for the time of year. I think the only time there was joy rather than whinging was the spring of 2020 when we went into lockdown and the weather was warm and dry so we were able to get out in our gardens, go for the allotted walks we had permission to do, and in rural areas maybe extend those walks.

I wonder too if we moan about “seasonal spirituality” – as in Christmas is too busy and comes round too soon, the “Church” doesn’t do Easter like it used to, in X denomination they don’t do X-season as well as Y church that we don’t attended because …..

But what does season spirituality really mean? Or at least what does it mean to me?

At the moment I’m not regularly attending a congregation and my husband has had to accept that this is the season I am in. But I do co-run a Christian youth group; although that has not taken place since May due to the majority of our young people being busy. We only have 5 young people so if 3 of them are busy and others don’t want to come because their friends aren’t coming then it doesn’t happen. Myself and my co-leader have to accept this is the season our group is in.

For me seasonal spirituality means not just going with the seasons of the land – spring, summer, autumn, winter – but going with the seasons of my heart, of what I believe God is saying to me, of what I have the energy to do. It is trusting that inner voice, checking that it isn’t just me being obtuse [as in with the not going to church] or people pleasing [as in with the going to church/getting involved with church based activities], and checking in with God to really know what God wants of me in this season of my life.

Talking of seasons, I am now in my early 60s and so I look at life differently to what I did in my early 40s even, and definitely differently to how I looked at life in my early 20s. I need to explore this new season of my life not just rush boldly forward doing whatever. And I think that is the same with spirituality – we often don’t pause, take time out to feel that change of season, but rush forward either doing the same old same old or often getting busier and busier.

Life changed in 2020. There were a lot of prophecies about “perfect vision” and I still believe lockdown, Brexit here in the UK, mass migrations, climate change, the war in Ukraine, and other things are part of the reviewing of the world. And I think we need to pause, to look, to really see what God is really seeing.

Jesus talks about “those who have ears let them hear” and about people being “always seeing but never perceiving” and yet if we don’t take time out to see what the spirituality season is that we are in then we will not hear God’s voice, will not see what God is doing, will not perceive our role in this.

So are we willing to take some time to contemplate what season we are in? To not grumble that it is too busy/quiet/fast/slow/wet/dry/revival/not/etc? And will we just wait until we can really hear what God is doing, really perceive what God is doing and really know our part in all of this. And maybe it is as Christine said the other day our work is loving the world just as it is. How about giving that a go for a while?