With autumn
at hand, and perhaps triggered by the 50th anniversary of
my entrance into the Society of Jesus, I am reminded that
the spring and summer of my own life cycle have passed.
Yet at 67, my Medicare card in hand, I feel
a persistent vibrancy. My autumn season is proving to be much
richer than I anticipated. I feel nothing like an October
pumpkin sitting in a field surrounded by dead vines and leaves
hoping to be put on a roadside stand before I begin to rot.
Instead a fresh energy is bubbling up – a sense that what
is stirring within me is coming to fruition. And I am becoming
profoundly and increasingly more grateful for my vocation
as a Jesuit.
A short time ago Fr. David Fleming, SJ sent
me a copy of his synthesis of the main paths into the riches
of the Spiritual Exercises. Discipleship and Its Foundations:
A Jesuit Retreat. It became the basis of my prayer for several
weeks and revealed a fresh perspective. It was as if I suddenly
had an aerial view of life as a forest whose paths I was familiar
with but had never quite grasped how they connected. Gratitude
filled my heart not only for greater personal understanding
of the Spiritual Exercises but also for the gift of becoming
a wiser companion to those I serve.
A Happy Birthday
This
evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was
gone and the book
was not more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride
this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable
page
with the pale grey ghost of my hand.
Much of my energy over the past 35 years
of ministry has been in anticipating problems, strategizing
and initiating the necessary action. As my energies decrease
and failed strategies become more evident, I find myself invited
to spend much more time listening and waiting for God to say “this is the path, walk on it”(Isaiah: 30:21). Maybe in the
autumn of my life I am finally becoming who God called me
to be as a Jesuit: a contemplative in action.
Perhaps the autumn of our lives is simply
the season we discover the gifts God’s grace has been ripening
within us.
I identify with Ted Kooser’s beautiful final
poem in a collection aptly titled Delights and Shadows.
I intend to be still,
leave the lights off, and gratefully ride my autumn “down into
night.”
With autumn
at hand, and perhaps triggered by the 50th anniversary of
my entrance into the Society of Jesus, I am reminded that
the spring and summer of my own life cycle have passed.
