The Rotation of the Seasons
N.B. This blog post has been a long time in the making, because it has been a very long time in the living. A lot of it builds on things I've written before, so my apologies if any of it sounds too familiar. I've found a lot of fruitfulness in revisiting my whole walk with Christ and learning to see the overarching pattern of what I have experienced. This metaphor resonates deeply with me, and I hope it will touch your heart too.
Twelve years ago, aged sixteen, I was in the first springtime of my soul. I had been going to youth group for about a year, had attended my first silent retreat at Eastertime, and was tentatively embarking on the start of a personal prayer life. It all lay ahead of me – mission, vocation, learning about the Church, a deep relationship with Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit, incredible friendships. I was full of enthusiasm and wonder and hope.
Nine years ago, aged nineteen, I was in the first summertime of my soul. I had just finished two years serving with NET Ministries, had moved to Brisbane to begin university study alongside work for the Church, and was beginning to seriously discern a vocation to religious life. I was flourishing and flying in the faith and mission life I had dreamed of. I was full of joy and satisfaction and expectancy.
Six years ago, aged twenty-two, I was in the first autumn of my soul. I had reached the summit of my vocation discernment at Jamberoo Abbey and gone back down the mountain, Callum and I had begun dating, and we had just found out my dad had incurable cancer. I found my world changing in big and small ways, some of them beautiful and many of them hard, as I stepped into different identities than those I had envisaged for myself. I was full of questions and gratitude and fear.
Three years ago, aged twenty-five, I was in the first winter of my soul. My dad had just died after a years-long battle with cancer, the covid pandemic had wreaked havoc on most of my dreams, and Callum and I had left our well-established lives in Brisbane to begin a new chapter in Hobart. I grieved keenly the loss of people and places and plans, and didn’t know how to relate to a God I felt had let me down. I was full of cold sorrow and numbness and disappointment.
Today, aged twenty-eight, I am once again in a springtime within my soul. The life we are building in Hobart feels full of possibility and delight, our daughter is a constant source of joy, our marriage is thriving, and once again I feel the thrill of stepping into the unknown with Jesus. Somehow, again, it is all ahead of me – mission, vocation, learning, relationship with God, community. After spending a long time learning to trust again, I am once more full of enthusiasm and wonder and hope.
Perhaps that sounds trite. Certainly me-three-years-ago would doubt that I could actually feel full of enthusiasm and wonder and hope again, that second spring was a possibility. In winter there are days where it’s hard to believe summer can ever return. I have friends who are currently in their “winter” season, and I know their pain, that agony of staring out at the cold abyss wondering whether you’ll ever feel warm again. I don’t say any of this lightly.
But I do want to say it. In writing this post, I want to
stand as witness to the Rotation of the Seasons in the human soul, to the ever-spinning
cycle of life, death, and resurrection that leads the human heart into
maturity. I think it probably looks different in every person, so my experience
may not resonate with yours.
Then one day, almost imperceptibly, the seasons changed. The days got a bit shorter, and there was more darkness than before. Discipleship felt messier or harder or uglier. Things—at some physical or emotional or spiritual level—started going wrong. Faith wasn’t shiny. They didn’t feel happy anymore. The journey towards winter had begun.
And nobody had warned them. Nobody had talked about the seasons of faith—that in each of our lives we will live the pattern of Christ, the Paschal mystery, in dying and rising again. Nobody, I felt, had warned me. Autumn came as a surprise, and winter as a harsh blow. I didn’t know how to die well, and I certainly didn’t feel hopeful that I could rise again.
At the time, I wished I had a map or a blueprint, some word of encouragement to say, “keep going, it will get better”. Hinds’ Feet on High Places definitely went a lot of the way to acting as that map, and I highly recommend that book to anyone who feels like they’re in a difficult season of their faith life. (I’m also (quietly, slowly) chipping away at writing a novel that I hope will capture some of this journey allegorically, but don’t expect it any time soon).
So in the interim, I want to offer a few thoughts and a few words of encouragement about the rotation of the seasons in our souls, with the hope of beginning a conversation about this topic. For me, the pattern I describe below really isn't about external things, even though external difficulties may be part of our autumn and winter seasons. Difficulties are present in "summer" too, and times of relative peace and uneventfulness in the "colder" chapters of our journey. These seasons are specifically about our interior walk with Christ, and the experience of faith in our souls.
What is Springtime?
In nature, spring is a time of thawing and new growth. Flowers
beginning to bud and bloom. Tiny green shoots push through the soil. Birds and
animals are giving birth. Creatures that have been hibernating return to
wakefulness. It might still be very cold on some days, and there’s usually a
fair bit of rain. When I lived in Brisbane spring meant blustery, driving
winds. Here in Hobart, spring is a very inconsistent season: hot some days and
frigid the next. But the general trend is one of warming up. The days get longer,
and the nights get shorter.
In the Christian life, spring in the soul is also a time of
thawing and new growth. New revelations about who God is and who we are rise
to the surface of our hearts. Fresh understanding of truth and beauty are
born within us. We might not always feel warmth (consolation, certainty, a
sense of spiritual wellbeing) but the Light is getting stronger each day. Things
that have been hibernating within us, hidden or sleeping through the winter of
our souls, begin to wake up. In Paschal language, this is Resurrection
of the Christian, a rising again of what has died and been in the tombs of our
hearts. Perhaps this rising comes about through Baptism or a reversion of
practicing faith; perhaps through the overcoming of spiritual winter (more on
this below).
For me, the first springtime of my faith was a season of
learning about Christ and claiming belief as my own as a teenager. At Set Free
conferences and youth group and girls’ group and other events I went to, I was
eager to hear stories about Jesus and about the life that is found in following
him. I could feel fresh hunger for spiritual things, a crying-out withing my
soul for more. I wanted to learn from those older and wiser than me, in
conversation and in books. Prayer didn’t quite make sense to me yet, and there
were many aspects of my life that I kept separate from faith—but I was letting
the Light in a little more each day.
Some blog posts I wrote in this season:
·
My first post and early musings about who I am in God’s eyes
·
Pondering how to live faith in the middle of a world that judges you for it
·
Chronicles of World Youth Day 2013 and beginning
to understand my call to mission
What is Summer?
In nature, summer is associated with hot weather and the
longest days of the year. Sunshine is abundant, trees are fruiting, and
harvests begin to be collected. Often the warmest weather comes after the summer
solstice (longest day), and lingers until early autumn or later. Extreme
weather events are also common in summer: thunderstorms and monsoons in some
climates, droughts in other climates.
In the Christian life, summer in the soul is also a time of
warmth, light, and fruitfulness. The learning and understanding of springtime
begin to bear fruit in our souls and in the way we live. We embrace the
calling to holiness and mission. We bask in the glow of a faith that feels
bright and certain, that warms us and brings us joy. Yet in this season,
extreme weather—trials, big emotions, difficult Fiats—can also play a role.
Parts of the season are stormy or dry, depending on the character of the individual.
The heat and bright light are there, but
so too is an intensity as we align everything within us to the will of God. In
Paschal language, summer can be seen as the Life of the Christian, a
time of working and teaching and healing in ministry as Jesus himself had, that
brings others to an encounter with the Father
For me, the first summer of my faith was a season of mission
and purpose. On my NET years and throughout the start of my life in Brisbane, I
poured myself deeply into a life of prayer and service. I felt, pulsing within
me, the desire to make Jesus known, to give to others the joy that I had found
in the Gospel, to give more and more of myself to the work of ministry. It was
also a stormy time, on the outside and on the inside. My second NET year
involved a difficult mission field where we regularly felt hated and
misunderstood by those we ministered to. My time discerning religious life—born
of the warmth and joy I was feeling in my life of faith—also regularly found me
a puddle of fear and uncertainty as I tried to figure out how God wanted me to
give my life. Yet underpinning it all was a conviction that I was (and was
becoming ever more) who I was meant to be.
Some blog posts I wrote in this season:
·
Musings on my vocation in 2014 and 2015
·
What mission life might look like after NET, and
as a student.
·
Lots about being in love with Jesus
What is Autumn?
In nature, autumn is a season of cooling, of softening
light, and of leaves changing colour as they prepare to shed. Harvest time has
peaked and is gradually drawing to a close. The days, though still warm, are
growing shorter in length and the nights growing longer. The sun is lower in
the sky, revealing different aspects and gentler colours in what it touches.
Deciduous trees change from green leafy fullness, to red-and-gold splendour, to
bareness by the end of the season.
In the Christian life, autumn in the soul is also a time of gradually
cooling fervour, the softening of old perspectives, and the preparation of
different parts of our person to fall to the ground in death. Our harvest of
fruit and ministry might be slowing down and changing. We still feel warm and
full of the Joy of the Gospel, but the balance of Light and Dark in our hearts
is decidedly changing. We might not feel as black-and-white about particular
things as we used to: the light has softened and revealed new ways of looking
at things, gentler and more nuanced. And all of the things that we have felt
made up our identity have changed colour now. They are beautified, made splendid—but
they are being prepared for death. In Paschal language, autumn can be seen
as the Passover and Passion of the Christian, the transformation of the
heart in readiness to die and lay fallow, a time that is marked by beauty but
will end in bareness.
For me, the first autumn of my faith was a season of
adapting and letting go. As I gave God my Fiat to a vocation in the middle of
the world, began pursuing a relationship, and came to grips with the
understanding that my dad might never be well again, I felt the challenge of
embracing the new perspectives on faith that my season demanded of me. My
relationship with the Church was also continually tested throughout this time,
and I found I had to keep going deeper and reassessing Truth to reconcile it
with my experiences of Christians’ failures. I was discovering ugliness inside
the Church, and beauty outside of it, and it was a continual challenge to
remember Christ as the source of the Light. I was learning nuance through this
process, but also felt like I was dying to myself every day in little ways I
had never expected.
Blog posts I wrote in this season:
·
A few things about Post-Attraction Catholicism and loving the Church on the hard days
·
The four-part series “There and Back Again”
about my discernment at Jamberoo Abbey
·
Some musings about whether holiness is possible in dating and developing a spirituality deeper than ‘Jesus is
my boyfriend’
·
A gradual coming to understand that faith isn’t just about joy and that my decade of discipleship contained
sorrowful mysteries too
What is Winter?
In nature, winter is the cold, dark, and fallow season that
occurs when a hemisphere is tilted away from the sun. The nights are at their
longest and the days at their shortest. Usually the coldest weather comes after
the winter solstice (shortest day). Deciduous trees are bare; few fruits or
flowers are found; some animals hibernate through the entire season, and others
grow heavier coats of fur to withstand colder conditions. Winter often brings
precipitation, rain or snow, and can also host harsh weather events like blizzards
and severe frost that make moving in the environment difficult.
In the Christian life, winter of the soul is also a time of
cold, darkness, and fallowness. The Light feels weak; we see no fruitfulness
in our lives; we might feel like we’re sleepwalking or that we’ve had to
adapt whole new character traits to endure the conditions. There can be a sense
of endless darkness and frigidity that makes us wonder if we’ll ever know God’s
consolation again; we experience disappointment, grief, numbness, and
immobility. In Paschal language, winter is the Death and Three Days in the
Tomb of the Christian, the defeat (for all appearances) of what we had
hoped for and dreamed of in our walk with the Lord.
For me, the first winter of my faith corresponded with
difficult and painful events at the surface level of my life: my dad’s
worsening illness and death, the separation brought about by the covid
pandemic, and the upheaval of old identities in leaving Brisbane to begin a new
life in Tasmania. But it was more than the things I was going through; it was
the sense that I’d lost my hold on who I wanted to be and probably would never
find it again. It was the sense that—though I still felt convinced of Jesus’
presence with me—the life of faith was one that led to loss and darkness and
the death of all my dreams. I grieved particular bargains I had “made with God”
(if I do X, please will you give me Y), and felt the cold edges of nihilism and
hopelessness touching my soul.
But the tomb was also a place of healing. Christ led me
tenderly into the deepest of my wounds in that winter season, and gave me the
means to understand myself and my calling more deeply than I ever had. He
whispered consolation, and mercy, and forgiveness. And even on those coldest,
dreariest days, I experienced Him as hygge, an ineffable cosiness
despite the external conditions.
Some blog posts I wrote during this season:
· I think it’s telling that I only wrote two blog
posts per year for each of 2020, 2021, and 2022 (in contrast to figures in the
high teens most prior years). Winter isn’t super fruitful – but I love
the things I wrote in these years because they’re far realer and more profound,
especially these three:
o
The Valley of Loss and a Yes From the Depths
What is Spring 2.0?
I feel like this merits its own section because of the ways
second spring feels different from first spring. While many of the qualities of
the season are the same as the first time around—new learning, fresh fervour,
increasing warmth and brightness—the main thing that differentiates second
spring is that it is harder to learn to trust it.
Having endured winter and death, the Christian is re-invited
into the Resurrection, into hopefulness and new life. And our main battle to
stepping into it fully is the fear and cynicism that follows hurt. We are
scared of losing all again, and so we don’t know how to find the courage to rebuild.
Winter crushed old hopes and dreams, and it feels unfathomably risky to believe
that it’s actually warming up again, that the days are actually getting
longer.
For me, Spring 2.0 is gaining momentum now, but for at least
a year I felt timid, fearful of admitting that maybe things were getting
brighter, because I didn’t want to say it only for it to be taken away. Like in
nature, it takes a long time after the darkest day for the world to begin to
feel warm again. My heart needed a long time to thaw before I could feel that
new life stirring below the surface again. Spring returns on this earth—it
always does—but having lived the first passion and death of our souls, we begin
to understand that we are made for heaven. The rotation of the seasons
continues, and as we live the cycle again we have a deeper conviction that all
these things are passing away. It will be spring again for a time, and
summer will return, and autumn will follow, and winter will come, and we will
survive if we keep our eyes upon Eternity, which is beyond these earthly cycles
of our experiences.
A blog post I wrote at the end of winter/ the very start of Spring 2.0:
· A New Kind of Letting Go (I think this one is important)
As you pray with and ponder the mystery of seasonality in
your own walk with Christ, I’d like to offer a few more ideas that have become
resonant with me in these concepts. Let me know if you have others – I think we
are always richer for sharing our experiences.
1.
Seasonality is a holy Truth
We see it in nature, in ways mentioned in the previous
section. We see it in the female body, with the monthly rhythm of rising
estrogen and ovulation, progesterone in the luteal phase, and the hormonal
crash towards menstruation. We see it in the Liturgical calendar, as each year
we observe Lent and Easter, Pentecost and Ordinary Time, Advent and Christmas. We
see it in the mysteries of the rosary: joyful, sorrowful, glorious. Cyclical
realities have a spiritual resonance because we are formed by them in our
world, our bodies, and the Church.
And yet when we are going through hard times in our heart
and soul, we struggle to grasp on to the holy truth of seasonality. We feel
like we’ve done something wrong because it isn’t summer anymore. We feel that
if we were doing faith “right” we wouldn’t be experiencing darkness and cold. We
think that our questions and fears, our sorrows and disappointments, are a sign
that somewhere along the track we took a wrong turn.
I believe the opposite is true. The turning of the seasons
is a symbol of maturity and growth, an invitation to deeper realities about
God, and a strengthening of grace within us. We aren’t being punished for a
mistake. We aren’t being made to suffer unnecessarily. We are being led into
the fallow season to be prepared for new fruitfulness. We die to rise again,
more glorious than before.
Each season has its place and its meaning if we take the
time to listen to what it is telling us. Each is sacred for its own
reasons, and precious, and important.
2.
God leads us tenderly through our seasons
To return to the point that a change of season is a symbol
of maturity—I think that God does not lead us forward out of one season until
He knows we are truly ready for it.
He knows that for most people a long and luxuriant
springtime is the best way to begin a journey of faith and discipleship. He
wants us to learn and blossom and turn our faces towards the sun. He wants us
to feel fully alive and bright and excited to commit to Him.
He knows, too, that when we step into mission and community
and a strong personal prayer life, we need time to immerse ourselves fully in
that summer in order to be convicted that He is the way, the truth, and the
life in every aspect of our lives.
He knows, too, that while in this world we and others will
have to endure change and weather storms. He wants us to have deep roots, strength
of character, and wisdom that goes beyond happy platitudes. He leads us into
autumn to give texture and colour to our faith, to nuance our convictions with
a softer light and longer nights. He allows us to experience our questions and
fears, to wrestle with them, in order to make our discipleship
three-dimensional. He does this when He knows we are ready for it, when we have
a strong enough foundation to experience the cost of our Fiat.
And He knows that suffering and death are the pathway to
Love and Resurrection. He knows because He lived it on Calvary and in the tomb
and on Easter morning. He waits to expose us to the harshness of winter, but He
does not shield us from it forever, because He knows how needful it is for us
to come to full maturity and resurrection glory.
He waits until we are ready for each season. If you are
experiencing autumn or winter in your soul, it is because God believes you are
mature enough to handle it.
3.
The season you’re in touches your whole life
Can you have miserable, stormy days in summer? Yes. Can you
have golden, sunshiny days in winter? Absolutely. But the background temperature
and weather patterns of the season will impact everything—from how you dress,
to how you heat or cool your house, to the activities you plan.
So too with our souls. On any given day, some things will be
joyful and some sorrowful, some easy and some hard. But the broader Season
we’re going through in the background of our souls will inform every detail of
how we experience reality, on some level. In spiritual winter, we don’t have
the resilience we do in summer. We’ve been shaken to our core, stripped back of
everything we once believed, led into losses that we never thought we’d have to
endure. And so all the little things become harder. Prayer looks different. The
sacraments look different. Friendships look different. Service looks different.
Jesus is merciful to us in all those differences, but so
often we lack mercy for ourselves. We feel an overwhelming guilt that we aren’t
what we once were in our prayer life or friendships or service of others. We
are depressed in spirit and don’t know how to show up to anything how we used
to. It’s harder to make decisions; it’s harder to bounce back from
disappointments. And that is okay. That is the truth of the season, and it
will touch every aspect of your life.
4.
Seasons demand honesty
I think the worst thing we can do is pretend (to ourselves
or others) that we’re in a different season than we are actually in. This kind
of inauthenticity is poison: it erodes our intimacy with others, our integrity
in ministry, our connection with God. I honestly think that most of the evil
that Christians do happens when they fail to communicate that they’re going
through a rough season spiritually, and so have no resources for coping.
When we hide the truth of our souls from God and others, suffering
festers to become sin. When we share—vulnerably, humbly, authentically—we make
space for light and truth to flood our experiences. Honesty in our seasons
gives God and our friends a chance to speak words of love and encouragement to
us. Dishonesty (even by omission) about our sorrow and suffering isolates us
and makes that suffering a million times worse.
“I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid,” our first
parents say in the book of Genesis. I was afraid because faith no longer felt
sparkly, so I hid behind a fake smile and a platitude so that nobody noticed my
failure. I was afraid because everything seemed dark and cold and difficult
where once it felt bright and life-giving, so I hid from God because I couldn’t
face the possibility that it might stay this way forever.
Seasons demand honesty: if we aren’t real about what we’re
going through, we will probably reveal it anyway through poorly made decisions,
violence, or the witness of our existential apathy. Nihilism is noticeable.
5.
Every season can be survived (and even
thrived within) with the right resources
A hiker’s adage runs: “There’s no such thing as bad weather,
only unsuitable clothing.” Humans across millennia have adapted to the seasons
in objectively inhospitable climates, by learning what is needed in the way of
clothing, shelter, and food to survive the tougher parts of the year.
We need resources appropriate to the season we are in, if we
wish to thrive. The books and talks and experiences that filled us with
consolation and excitement in spring will feel useless to us as late autumn
turns to winter. Old patterns of engaging with our faith life might become
stale or even detrimental to our onward progress.
Now don’t get me wrong—I don’t think there’s ever a season
for avoiding the sacraments. The Eucharist and Confession have their place come
summer, autumn, winter and spring, even if they feel different according to the
season. We need the factual grace that comes from these in the same way as
hikers need food and water no matter the weather.
But other, less central, resources within the Church might
only be suitable for some seasons in our life. Lectio Divina, Adoration, the
Rosary, particular podcasts or small groups or worship music or
conferences—these things are actually optional, as a raincoat or fleece
jumper is optional for a hiker but highly recommended in some weather
conditions.
The trouble is that it’s difficult to find good winter
resources. The Church abounds in faith studies geared at those early in their
journey, but sometimes doesn’t know how to support those suffering and
grappling with deep questions as their walk with Christ continues. Most
Catholics I know don’t speak in the language of personal death and resurrection
according to the pattern of Christ: we don’t like the sound of that.
I think we also don’t share because it is so scary to talk
about winter when you’re in it, and fear that spring might never return. But
that doesn’t mean others aren’t there with you in the middle of the winter
season, or haven’t been there before you.
The below are a few resources I found helpful in surviving
the first wintertime of my own soul (an incomplete list, and I’d love to add
your recommendations):
·
Hinds’ Feet on High Places: a profoundly
beautiful allegorical novel about one soul’s walk with Christ, and a novel that
is realer about the personal death and resurrection journey than almost
anything I’ve come across. Necessary reading.
·
The Abiding Together podcast: These three
women are so up front about their own sorrowful and glorious mysteries, and
seasonality. There are just so many nuggets of wisdom packed into each episode,
and I found their honesty and reverence for the human heart helpful as I
grappled with my own heart in winter.
·
The Restore the Glory podcast: Winter is
a time for quietness and introspection and, yes, I think, grappling with your
wounds. Sound Catholic psychology can help, and Restore the Glory does a great
job of talking about the human heart. I began at the beginning and worked
through to more recent episodes.
·
Catholic novels, including In This House of
Brede (Rumer Godden), the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy (Sigrid
Undset), and The Dry Wood (Caryll Houselander). These authors know where
it’s at, and capture the mysteries of redemptive suffering in powerful ways in
their work.
·
Max Richter’s Recomposed Four Seasons by Vivaldi
album: I still listen to this as a spiritual meditation on the twelve years
mentioned above. The music moves through the chapters of my life in ways that
bring me to tears and heal inarticulable parts of my soul.
· A friend—even just one—who gets what you’re going through and can speak the same language. I have been so deeply and richly blessed by the fact that my best friend and I have usually been in the same spiritual season at the same time. We’ve questioned together, sorrowed together, found new hope together. The gift of company in the bleak midwinter is resource beyond price.
I hope this post can be the beginning of a conversation
about what the rotation of the seasons can look like in our souls. I know what
I’ve written here won’t resonate with everyone, and I don’t think it’s a watertight
formula that applies to every person’s journey. But I do think that the
paschal mystery of Christ’s life, passion, death, and resurrection unfolds in
the life of every Christian. For me, the seasons are a slightly more
accessible way of understanding and applying that Truth, one that resonates deeply
with my experience of the last twelve or more years in my discipleship.
I also think it is important that we begin to speak more
openly about what winter and dying to self looks like in the journey of
discipleship, because I think this is where many people fall away from faith.
Like the seed that falls among thorns and is “choked by the worries of this
world”, so many people who begin in good faith don’t know how to navigate its
ongoing challenges, and don’t have the resources to persevere when the first
joy and zeal fade.
We need to be honest about winter, and we need to be honest about the return of spring. Both are true, and both are hard to accept, in their own ways. The rotation of our seasons demands so much from us, but is both the sign and the means by which God brings about maturity in our souls.
I'm praying for you, friend.
Kate
AMDG
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