Promises of Recovery and Fruit of the Spirit

Promises and Fruit

Promises of 12-Step Recovery and Fruit of the Spirit

“1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. 2. We will know a new freedom and a new happiness. 3. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

Keller Hall Camp Mitchell

4. We will comprehend the word serenity and know peace. 5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. 6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. 7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. 8. Self-seeking will slip away. 9. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change.

10. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. 11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. 12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”—The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (Alcoholic Anonymous World Services, Inc., 4th edition, 2001).

Do you see any similarity between the promises of a twelve-step program and the nine fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)? Paul writes that we know and feel our connection to the Spirit, the God within us, if the consequence, the fruit, of what we do produces “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

The twelve-step promises and the fruit of the Spirit can both serve as guides—benchmarks indicating whether we are indeed on the right track—if we are connected to the God of our understanding, the Christ, the Spirit within us. When two disciplines convey a similar truth, I begin to believe and pay attention to it.

We are especially called to look for the fruit of the Spirit as we approach Pentecost. The fruit are our guides, our mentors, telling us that we are staying connected to the Spirit, the God, within us. The promises also indicate that those in recovery are staying connected to their higher power.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

The Joy of Raspberries

                                     THE JOY OF RASPBERRIES

                                Guest Writer and Artist: Ken Fellows

     Here’s the secret of successful raspberry picking: think like a raspberry. They’re crafty, deceptive, tricky, and shy. Growing in clumps of 5-8, the ripe ones hide behind unripe relatives to avoid detection. Some –usually the biggest and sweetest –grow solitarily and obscure, down low, among bushy green leaves and thorny stems.

Breakfast Treat. Ken Fellows

Unlike ground-hugging strawberries with their low ‘fruit-to-leaf’ ratio, raspberry plants grow 4 -6 feet tall, supported on foliage-dense, crisscrossing, prickly branches. A good picker must lift up, pull down, untangle, turn over, separate, and inspect along rows of plants from all angles to retrieve the red-seeded prey.

      In my small raspberry patch, the hunt is further complicated by entwining weeds bearing the same-shaped leaves and gray-green color as the berry bushes. They twist round and round the berry canes, adding even more cover for the elusive red fruit. Unwinding from the raspberry plants, ubiquitous weeds are enough to pull them by their roots, doubling the picking time without increasing the berry yield. It’s maddening.

     Maine’s mosquitoes provide the berries with another defense. My berry patch supports hordes of them. During the July picking season, green-headed flies join the battle on behalf of the fruit, so I’m forced to pick fruit in the sweltering midday because the vexing insects are less active then.

When I march into battle under a blazing, humid afternoon sun, armored against airborne enemies, the core of my protection is an airless, black, netted nylon jacket covering my head to waist. Covering my face, the netting prevents the ingestion of belly berries, a serious drawback. Below, I wear jeans tucked into tall rubber boots. This is not a cool outfit. It’s sweaty, airless, and hot. Head hot. Body hot. Feet hot. Everything hot, hot, hot.

     Of course, I wear a shirt under the mosquito-netting jacket and douse myself with Cutter’s spray repellent. The little buggers still find ways to penetrate the clothing and the netting, so no picking session is itch-free. My front yard berry patch is next to our street, Chauncey Creek Road, and strollers walking by often comment:

         “How lucky for you to have raspberries to pick.”  

          “Oh yes, lots of fun,” I grumble back.

     Forget the impediments: just gathering the berries isn’t all that easy either. It’s a stand-up job where I hold the collection box in one hand –or precariously cradle it on one bent arm –leaving the other hand free for plucking fruit.

But there’s a problem; I can become so engrossed in the search-and-snatch maneuvers that a partly filled box in my non-picking hand is forgotten, tips downward, and half an hour’s work scatters to the ground, irretrievably lost in the thicket. It’s not good if someone is walking by at that moment. I don’t mutter; I explode in a stream of blue language that I otherwise use only in front of my exasperating computer.  

     And have I mentioned the mental stressors in raspberry picking? Deep red berries are the object of the hunt. Purple ones are over-ripe and unusable; yellow-orange to orange-pink ones are tasteless and must await the next picking. But how about those becoming just faintly purple –or those turning ‘early red’? Pick now or later? Can I pick again in 2 days? Not if it’s raining or I’ll be busy or away. Almost every picking minute, crucial, stressful decisions must be made.

     If everyone knew the effort involved and the mental toll taken, they might understand why a commercial pint of raspberries is so expensive.

     There are rewards for hours and hours of berry tending: raspberry shortcakes, pies, and muffins, berries on cereal, and freezer jam, which takes raspberry taste to a higher level. On a stormy, cold winter’s morning, raspberry jam on warm toast makes life sustainable.

So, I’ll go on fussing with the plants …trimming, fertilizing, rototilling, watering, and battling insects and weeds. And I’ll continue picking with all its frustrations and hardships. I’ve been doing it for 40 years. I know the price and am willing to pay. I remain ever thankful for the bounty.

Ken Fellows

Joanna Seibert joannaseibert.com

Secret Garden

Silence, Secret Easter Garden

 “What will your secret garden look like? The point is to begin to slow down your life and focus your attention. Listen, and in the quiet, you will hear the direction of your heart. The garden of silence is always there for us. Patiently waiting.” —Anne D. LeClaire in Listening Below the Noise: The Transformative Power of Silence (Harper Perennial, 2009).

Langley in the Secret Garden at the former College of Preachers at National Cathedral

One of my favorite young adult novels is The Secret Garden, by the American-English author Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett, who also wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess. The Secret Garden tells of an unloved ten-year-old English girl sent to live with her grieving uncle in his remote country home on the bleak moors of Yorkshire after her parents die. Her unhappiness, aloneness, and the heartache and isolation of those around her heal when she begins caring for and restoring a secret garden on the manor house grounds.

I watched the 1993 British film starring Maggie Smith with my daughter and granddaughters and later saw the play with a granddaughter. This story resonates with the child within us, the creative part of us—the side we so quickly abandon for more important things, which is a significant connection to the divine within us.

The Secret Garden also tells how nature’s sounds, smells, and sights can silence and calm the grownup “wounded committee” in our heads—and heal and transform our inner child. We all should have a secret garden, a place where we can gently reconnect with the God within ourselves and the divine in each other. It represents a safe place where the presence of the Spirit is more easily felt, as described in Psalm 32:7: “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.”

Ann Gornatti’s Secret Garden

Talking about our secret garden, our hiding place—often a place of silence—can be an opening to the divine in spiritual direction.

So many friends planted new gardens during the past pandemic. Nurseries and garden centers were thriving. So, as we continue to plant and watch the growing, let us also contemplate our own secret garden, where a very holy part of us lives and grows.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/