Hard Questions

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love, Peace, power, self-control, speaking truth to power, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Timothy, truth

Again today, just one line from St. Paul. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul said the following: For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. (2 TIM 1:7) We would do well to reflect on these qualities in these difficult days when darkness seems to toy with the waning light of day, when violence seems to compromise peace in the world and when leadership in our institutions sometimes seems to fail instead of leading us. Where in ourselves can we find the strength to speak truth to power, to stay the course of peace in times of conflict? And how will we be the love of God to all we meet, regardless of return or reward?

Delightful Fruits

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Confirmation, courage, faithfulness, generosity, gentleness, Holy Spirit, joy, kindness, knowledge, love, patience, Peace, reverence, right judgment, self-control, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understanding, wisdom, wonder & awe in God's presence

Part of my preparation for receiving the sacrament of Confirmation was to memorize all the gifts that I would receive from the Holy Spirit. Since I was only twelve years old at the time, I’m not sure how I understood the promise of those gifts. Much later, when teaching Confirmation classes to teenagers, it was still difficult to imagine – even in new translation – how suddenly the confirmands would become spiritually adult, having received gifts of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, right judgment, courage, reverence and wonder & awe in God’s presence as the bishop laid hands on their heads and anointed them. I was lucky to team-teach those classes for a couple of years with a colleague of my age who explained very well to candidates that these gifts, if nurtured by the recipient, would grow in them as they matured. I remember the first time he said, “I was in my thirties when I first realized what that meant.” For him – and for me still – it was good to pull that list out from the brain filed under the title Gifts to grow into to see how we were doing. It still is.

This morning I read another list of Spirit-gifts – not so commonly referred to these days – that I also learned as a young person. These are called by St. Paul in the 5th chapter of his letter to the Galatians fruits of the Spirit. It was a good practice to take inventory of how these qualities that seem somehow more concrete and practical have or have not come to find a home in me as I try to live a good life. Take a look and see what seems to be flourishing in you these days.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ripening Fruit

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faithfulness, fruits of the Holy Spirit, Galatians, generosity, gentleness, gifts of the Holy Spirit, joy, kindness, love, patience, Paul, Peace, self-control, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

When I was young I learned that in addition to the “Gifts of the Holy Spirit”, there were also other virtues to be developed by those on a spiritual path. These were called the “Fruits of the Holy Spirit”. As I have aged, I have come to regard these “fruits” as akin to my growth, not achieved by focused hard work but rather as the result of maturation – like fruit on a tree that needs the attention of the sun and rain and good soil in order to flourish. I can see that attention to and practice of the behaviors inherent in these virtues cause the “fruit” to manifest.

Paul gives us the list this morning (GAL 5), calling me to check in on the ripening of each in my heart and to give attention to those that still need time to mature. They are the following: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.