You can’t describe the current weather in my neighbourhood without a recognition that it’s a kind of in-between space. It’s not quite spring, yet winter’s grip is slowly fading. Daylight savings time cues our minds and bodies to get ready for spring as we reorient our clocks and rhythms around light. The days are getting longer and brighter, and the ground is thawing beneath our feet into squelchy, messy mud. We are in the muddy space in between seasons.
In his essay on the seasons, author and teacher Parker Palmer offers us these words. “Transformation is difficult, so it is good to know that there is comfort as well as challenge in the metaphor of life as a cycle of seasons. Illumined by that image, we see that we are not alone in the universe.” One of the gifts of the metaphor of seasons is that it connects us by giving us universal language to talk about how we’re doing, what we’re feeling, and to locate ourselves in a particular season.
As we locate ourselves in the natural world in this liminal space between winter and spring, we can see that the world around us is emerging from death and dormancy and hibernation into the new life of spring. But we can also locate how we are doing in our emotional and spiritual life. You may have experienced a recent job loss or you moved on from a relationship, and chances are you are wondering what’s next, which puts you in a kind of fall-autumn season. Or you may have experienced death in the family or loss, which puts you in a kind of winter. You may have a new baby or a new job and there’s excitement and it’s messy, and you haven’t quite figured out the rhythms yet; everything’s all out of sorts and you’re in a kind of spring season. Or you may be in a season of connection, of abundance, of generativity, or productive activity and you’re in a kind of summer.
Churches and organizations go through seasons too. The gift of this metaphor is that it can help us identify what kind of season we collectively are in. Further to this, we can identify dissonance and distance if the season we are personally in does not align with the season our organization or church is in. Churches that are in transition between pastors or coming out of grief or loss can use this metaphor as a way of locating where you are and what season you’re in. The question that I’ve found to be incredibly helpful is as follows: what does faithfulness look like in this particular season that I am / we are in?
For this, I like to take the time to differentiate faithfulness from fruitfulness. In the church we often equate the two, which is suggestive of a disconnect between our modern/industrial world and the agrarian world around us. Simply put, there is little in the world that is always fruitful. The natural world reminds us that life happens in cycles. From babies to spring buds, we experience seasons of new life and the fruitfulness that follows, as well as seasons of ending, letting go, loss, and finality.
My favourite Psalm is Psalm 1. It paints the picture of a tree that is faithfulness in season. The tree is a metaphor for the righteous follower of God that is deeply rooted to the source (God), and because of this, it bears fruit in season and it is resilient in the face of adversity. If we read in haste, we might miss the two word phrase “in season”, which reminds us that fruitfulness comes in season. Fruit-bearing tends to happen in only one (maybe two) of the four seasons. As churches and as followers of Jesus, we need to remind ourselves that fruitfulness comes in season, and that we will experience seasons of decline, of letting go, of simplifying and streamlining, of rest and renewal, and yes, even seasons of death and dormancy. These are all important aspects of the cycle of seasons that leads to fruit bearing in season.
As for me and my family, we’re in a season of mud. It’s everywhere. We’re in transition, still settling into our new home of Aughrim Hills. We’re building a chicken tractor, spreading our dump-truck load of mushroom compost around our garden, getting ready for bees and chickens and goats, all the while actively discerning next steps as far as ministry and vocational calling. What season are you in? What is God doing in your midst, beneath the clutter? How is your soul?