Richard Rohrs Daily Meditation Ripening The Shape of the Journey Tuesday, November 4, 2014 The movement toward gratitude, authenticity, and union is the natural and organic inner work of the second half of our lives, especially if we are granted the full “seventy years, or eighty if we are strong” (Psalm 90:10). Of course, for many the whole process of ripening, and the deepening of desire, is cut short by tragic, untimely death. I have seen some young people accelerate the entire process through an early, perhaps fatal, illness. If the dying process occurs consciously, it is an extremely accelerated ripening, as in a hot house. Why would any of us ripen until it is demanded of us? For some the demand comes early. Maybe God knows that most of us are slow learners and need more time to ripen. Reality, fate, destiny, providence, and tragedy are slow but insistent teachers. The horizon of old age seems to be a plan that God has prepared as inevitable and part of the necessary school of life. What is gratuitously given is also gratuitously taken away, just as Job slowly came to accept. Remember that Job’s final pained response to this was “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21). We all live in the same cycle of unrequested birth and unrequested death. Someone else is clearly in control, yet most of our lives are spent accepting and surrendering to this truth, trusting that this “Someone” is good and trustworthy besides. It is the very shape and journey of faith. Adapted from Ripening, Oneing, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 12-13 Gateway to Silence: Ripen me into fullness.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 10:28:54 +0000
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