“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” – Galatians 5:22
This past Sunday we began our Summer Ordinary Time Series, “Growing Fruit Together.” Each week, an individual or a couple from our church will reflect on a particular fruit of the Spirit using their own life story.
Our summer verb is “Grow,” and through these personal stories, we will bear witness to how the Spirit grows good fruit in us within the complexity and finiteness of our lives. These are not hero stories, just real people living real lives enfolded by the Spirit into a Love that seeks our transformation and growth.
In Galatians 5, the word for fruit is not plural but singular, implying that these qualities are interconnected to one another, distinct and yet part of a greater whole. Perhaps this “whole” is the familial warmth of the Trinity. What is it like to imagine God in this way? As loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and regulated, in control of one’s self? The Spirit wants to draw us home into this warmth and this warm way of being together. What is it like to imagine this as God’s deep desire for us, to share this way of being, this belonging, with us?
I’m so grateful to Ruth and Calvin, who started our summer series by reflecting on the fruit of love, which ties all these gifts together. (You may visit the Southpoint Spotify page to hear their stories.) They spoke of how love was formed in them through grief and failure, forgiveness and belonging, welcome and homecoming, and the softening of the heart through contemplation.
We grow in love as we soften and open our hearts to the Spirit and to one another. Here are two practices that you might want to try this week to soften and open your heart to love.
You might try this “I Love You Prayer” recorded by James Finley, available on Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation website: Link Here
Or, you might try going outside to a quiet spot and spending time in silence, imagining first God’s love surrounding you, then expanding out to those you love, then reaching further out to those who are harder for you to love, and finally enfolding our whole world.
Warmly,
Anne