For all seasons - Introduction

Rhythms of the soul

Everything on earth
has its own time
and its own season.
There is a time
for birth and death,
planting and reaping   Ecclesiates 3: 1-2 (CEV)

We need only open our eyes and look at the seasons as they unfold before us. They will teach us. (Rupp and Wiederkehr)

The Spirit blows where She will.  The Kingdom of God is within us. Within each day there is grace to notice and receive as well as the 'outwardness of the day' to shed.  Our life's ebb and flow may be characterised by the pull out towards the surface of life and the draw into the Centre from where we receive life and breath.

We are enveloped within a greater Presence and a larger cycle; the passion cycle of faith, mirrored within nature, of life, death and rebirth.  These transitions are, it seems, hardwired into creation, all creation.

A seasonal altar, a gathering place 

I am the vine; I am the door; I am..

Symbols are the language of the soul.  Because they give us a way to communicate with the soul, they open doors for transformation...Participating with symbols allows their deeper meaning to wrap around us and penetrate us.  Through them, what is lost and unutterable inside us becomes real and accessible. (When the heart waits, Sue Monk Kidd)

Every quarter or so, taking a cue from the literal and symbolic autumn, winter, spring and summer phases, this seasonal 'altar' will aim to help allow the deeper meaning of our lives to penetrate us.  We stop.  We may want:

• to still ourselves, and so resist the invasive overreaching fast pace of the day
• to allow fractured thoughts and feelings, snatches of Life to now come into focus
• to sit down with these graces and pulls that the Spirit has brought to the fore

An image or video, short reflection and prayer are offered and the possibility of adopting a rule of life may be explored.

Image: Grandstand viewpoint, Matthew O'Brien.  * The Circle of Life, Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr