SEASONED

Hi There !

No doubt about it.

Food is way better for being well seasoned.

So is life.

Seasonings accent both.

Right now the season of Fall

("autumn," if you're from uptown) 

is a fine example as it offers 

its own crisp, unique flavoring to our days.



         
Seasons of the Year are a quartet of flavorings.

Each gives variety, piquancy, to our everyday living.

( haven't used "piquancy" in over five years - 

needed to take it out of storage and dust it off!!)

As a kid my buddies and I loved to go skinny dipping.

We also loved to build igloos.

Seasons had a lot to do with how we experienced our

boyhood freedom and liveliness.

No skinny dipping in January!!!



 

Each season has a distinctive zest to it:

*Spring brightness warming new life,

*sultry Summer maturing growth,

*harvest fullness in Fall,

*Winter's bright stillness 

  and frozen deep dark.




On the inside of our living 

there are ever changing 

   Seasons of the Soul.

As they change, 

           we change -

*word prayer to 

           wordless enfoldment,

*stylized meditation to 

          contemplative awareness,

*ritual to 

          realized experience,

*study to 

          wisdom,

*service and solitude

          blended,

*wondering to 

          wonder,

*activity and Still Point a

           unity.






Climatologist of the spiritual atmosphere describe triune

                     Seasons of the Soul.

From Evagrius (d.399)and Pseudo-Dionysius (c.550)

up to just now, one way and many, they detail those three 

        Seasons of the Soul:

                    The Purgative Way

                    The Iluminative Way

                    The Unitive Way.

  
   

    
The Purgative Way:


*Beginner Stage

*stirrings, desire  for wholeness

* some soul sense and seeing

*a purgation of limiting negatives

*clearing and seeding the soulscape

*spiritual disciplines 

*prevenient grace


    
    
 The Illuminative Way 


*Soul Summer

*light blazes

       enlightenment

       seeing like never before

*grounding and rootedness

*growth and maturing

*fecundity

*contemplation

*getting it right

*justifying grace


   

 The Unitive Way

 
 *Soul Harvest

*lovers' oneness

*inter-mingled

*mystic merge

*always one, 

                 one in all ways

*soul seeing beyond eye or mind

*God and Soul: 

                two streams an ocean oneness

*sanctifying grace 





Soul Seasons, like the Seasons of the Year,

are sequential and progressive. 

Unique to them, though, are their 

overlapping and intertwining.

It can snow in July!!

At times there is the 

     paradox of

*verdant freshness

and scorching aridity,

*warming comfort and

frozen hardness,

*sunny seeing

          and

dreadful darkness,

        truly a 

Dark Night of the Soul,

a luminous darkness

 *gentle breezes and

   violent winds,

      sweeps of 
  
     The Spirit

*wholesome yet impure

*great grace and sin sick.





We don't cause or control the seasons of the year,

nor of the soul either.

We deal with what is given,

           go with it, 

           work with it,

           grow with it.




Of course we can chose to ignore or resist

what is given,

let the weeds grow,

go to seed,

drown or burn to death. 




In any season the weather can be

   unseasonably pleasant 

               or

   unseasonably dreadful.

          So, too, 

The Seasons of the Soul.

   There are times of 

"You couldn't buy this it's so good" 

         -  consolation -

There are also times of

     "Will this ever let up" 

         -  dark agony -

Agony and Ecstasy.

Spirit Powers that

lift, stretch, deepen. 



It's a big help in living 

our spiritual lives

out here on the street 

of everyday life

to be weather wise,

to be soul savvy,

grateful to be well

   SEASONED.
.



Thomas Moore was a saint.

He weathered all sorts of life/soul climates -

      power, prestige, position, wealth,

      conflict, misunderstanding, betrayal,

      ultimately death for conscience.

Truly

        "A Man For All Seasons."

Here's a prayer and hope

that we each and all may be such like.





Holding the very same each and all in 

       God's All Seasons Love,

                John Frank. 

                    *****

Thomas Moore is wonderfully portrayed in 

            A Man For All Seasons

           the book, the play, the film. 

                     *****


Regularly and repeatedly

we are gifted by new folks

joining in here each week.

Welcome and thanks 

for your good company.

To get a sense of what 

we are about here,

please do give a bit of

time and attention to

   * Consider Your Source

   * What's Going On Here?

They are in the right column,

             online.


     "frankly speaking'"

  spirituality for the street,

* is posted each Friday at

johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

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******************************************************************************