Lent: A Ripening Journey

One of the outcomes of the "coming of age" in the natural evolution of things human and rational is the frequent perception that "nothing surprises me anymore" or "nothing on this earth deeply excites me anymore". Doesn't that sound morbid? One might call this the "dumbing down of earthly idealism". Early in life, one might have been able to summon up a great deal of zeal and zest in pursuit of some sort of attractive goal. We climb. We climb further. We get somewhere. We grow old. We die. As the writer of Ecclesiastes once put it: "there is nothing new under the sun". But, here again, from a faith perspective, there is an upside to this dynamic. As we grow diminished in our relish for "temporal" life, we become more predisposed and resigned to what is ultimate and lasting. It has been said that: "hour by hour we ripe and ripe, hour by hour we rot and rot." It is the thrill of ripening that motivates this particular blog entry. We ripen to the depths as we lose our savor for all that is essentially unsatisfying. We find joy, inner peace and fulfillment through our understanding of where true happiness lies. This is a key component for our spiritual maturation. We become ready. It might even be said that we are fully ripe when we don't want to be here anymore. We want to be home with God. We pray, we long, we weep, we surrender, and suddenly we apprehend an ocean of gratitude in ourselves. It is only the most profound expression and realization of Homecoming Harvest that we seek, even as God the Giver of Grace is our Personal Gardener.