The Sorting

The deer I see in the meadow early this morning are almost mirages.  They still wear their winter coats, which allows them to blend into the background for protection.  I wouldn’t have noticed them if I hadn’t stood up to warm my coffee, and the next time I look, they have moved on.

A very wise spiritual director and friend, Mary, used to show up at the retreat house after Easter and announce, “THIS is the time when the real work begins.”

She taught us every year that Eastertide, the days that follow the privations and disciplines of Lent, the dramatic rituals and remembrances of Holy Week, the timpani and trumpets of Easter, is the season of sorting.  The time when we must dig deep into the insights that came to us during Lent, the new life we may have glimpsed within at Easter.  To dig, and then to understand how we are to manifest what we have learned of our own transformed life.

The gospel stories we read during Eastertide are full of experiences such as the one I had this morning — sightings, affirmations of new presence, showings of a transformed way of being.  But in my experience, most of the sermons preached during this time focus on the disciples’ reactions to the Risen Christ, and secondarily, on his ongoing teachings to them.  Few sermons are preached on what this means for US.  It is rare that I am asked how this event — now, in our own lives today — is causing me to see differently, to recognize camouflaged truths, to release the “captives” in my own heart and soul.

But isn’t this the point?

This is precisely the kind of conversation that can take place with a spiritual director.  Just as the disciples had fellow travelers with whom they walked and spoke and ate each day, a spiritual director can be a sounding board for reality checks (Did you really see those creatures, or was it just fog?  How did the experience speak to you?  Where are your dreams and intuitions leading you now?).

Many who meet me for spiritual direction keep daily spiritual journals.  This is an invaluable practice.  When we honor our moments of epiphany and insight, we become very like the early disciples, because we begin to give credence to the level of reality that matters most, even if the world around us doesn’t see it – or not yet.  Without acknowledging and reflecting on such moments, it is easy for the faint impressions that cross our busy paths to vanish.

The deer are gone as I write these words.  But they live on, here and in my journal.  Sharing a story gives it life.  If I had one prayer for you in this season, if would be to start a journal, if you don’t already do so.  And consider finding a spiritual director.  (You can learn more about spiritual direction on my website page  https://kathleenhirsch.com/spiritual%20direction/.

As Mary reminds us every year, the work of this time is to ponder the signs of the hidden life in our midst and what are trying to teach us — and then, to do the work of cooperating with our own transformation.