Meditation 5/11/20

Porter Taylor

Fruits of the Spirit

As we are forced to deal with the Covid 19 Virus longer and longer, it’s time we turned our attention from the “What” to the “How.” That is, it’s not so much what we face as how we face it. As Jesus said to his disciples “What good would it do to get everything you want and lose the real you?” (The Message Mark 8:26). I mean since we are in this for the long haul, perhaps our attention can shift from “How will we survive this” to “What kind of person do we need to be and are called by God to be?”

As I pondered this, I became aware of how much my own anxiety has captured my attention as well as affected the way I interact with my fellow human beings. This isn’t new. If you remember, when Mary Magdalene first turns from the tomb, she sees a stranger whom she supposes to be the gardener, and she says to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (John 20:15). So, when we are very afraid and disoriented, everyone looks like a thief. Our fear so clouds our vision, that we cannot see what lies in front of us. Instead of seeing the Risen Christ, Mary Magdalene sees a potential adversary. Jesus says, “Mary” and her vision clears.

So, it is with us. When we are in the grocery store, do we see the person near us as a Covid 19 carrier or a child of God? Is there a way we can be as wise as a serpent and also as innocent as a dove? When we get so stuck in our own anxiety that the person near us looks dangerous, can we remember our true name and our true calling?

Of course, we need to be safe. Of course, we need to practice social distancing and wear face masks. But our calling is deeper and wider and more important than that.

We are called to move away from what Paul calls the Fruits of the Flesh: strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy (Galatians 5:20). Instead we are to cultivate the Fruits of the Spirit: joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Therefore, maybe the test for this period is not merely survival. Maybe the test is remembering who we are and who we are called to be for our brothers and sisters. Maybe what the world needs is a reminder of what the Blessed Community looks like. Perhaps the Church’s calling is to be that reminder in the daily lives of the faithful. Instead of strife and quarrels and factions, maybe we are called to show patience and kindness and generosity. Because in everyone’s hearts, no one wants to live in a world of verbal civil war. We long to come home but we’ve just lost our way.

Because you can’t give away what you don’t have, let us cultivate those virtues. When we are confronted with situations that beckon us to our dark side, let us resist the Fruits of the flesh and ask God to give us the Fruits of the Spirit so that God might use us to make this world new.

Practice: Which of the Fruits of the Spirit can you embody today?

Prayer: Dear Gracious God, open our hearts so that we might be instruments of your peace.

“The Seven of Pentacles”

by Marge Piercy

Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

As the poet says, “This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always.” Our scripture is filled with the people of God living in the meantime—in the in-between time. There’s Moses and the Israelites wandering for forty years; and Holy Saturday and the period between Jesus’ Ascension and Pentecost. However, because we are mortal and because we live in time, this is the only moment we have to live a life for God regardless of what is going on in the world.

The psalmist writes, “Today is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” In the present moment, we may not see much growth, but it’s because “More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.” Instead we may feel as if the virus has hijacked our lives. However, what matters is our faith in what God has done, is doing and has promised to do for us and this world. Our faithfulness reminds us that this is only day we have to experience God’s love and mercy; this is the only day we have to be instruments of God’s grace; and this is the only day we have to grow closer to being the person God created us to be so that we might be instruments for God’s reign of grace, mercy, and justice to come on earth as it is in heaven.

Therefore, let us not lose heart. The transformation of the world is still going on even if it’s underground. Who is to say that our acts of connecting with our neighbors or insuring that through masks and maintaining distance we are fighting the virus or praying for God’s will to be done on earth---who is to say that these acts are not the very acts that enable the harvest to come.

Let us live the life that is before us. Let us keep reaching out; keep bringing in. For our faith is that after this long season, God’s harvest will come.