Adversity, New Seasons, and Other Thoughts

 As I write this today, it is the beginning of June.  Although the Summer doesn't start until June 21 I believe, unofficially summer started on Memorial Day weekend.  The summer season, for practical purposes, does not begin and end with the solstice cycles. Rather, it spans the annual quarter between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  It is during this time that kids are out of school, and that many vacations and other summer activities take place.  Especially in western Maryland where I live, you see this reflected in the weather as well.  Although I started mowing my yard in April, and will probably not do the last mow until mid-October, mowing is a hallmark of the summer season for many of us.   What is true of the summer activity calendar also oddly corresponds with the Church calendar as well this year.  As Catholics, the Church year essentially begins with the first Sunday in Advent - typically the Sunday following Thanksgiving - and it ends with the Feast of Corpus Christi which occurred this past Sunday on the Church calendar, an interesting coincidence in that the first Sunday in June ended the official festal seasons of the Church.  In the Church calendar, this now will be Ordinary Time (or Trinitytide if you are Anglican-use), also known as the "green season" due to the prominent liturgical color being green with the exception of some feast days.  The timing of the Church calendar is a matter of debate, as some would say the Church year begins with the Feast of All Saints in November, and others would say that Christ the King Sunday is the beginning of the festal seasons.  Also, the debate over whether Advent and Lent are festal periods would be a matter of debate, since both of those seasons are marked with solemn anticipation and emphasize preparation via penance and fasting.  I incorporate them here though as part of the festal aspect of the Church year because they prepare one for the bigger mysteries - the Nativity and the Resurrection of Christ.  This is not meant to be a primer on the Church calendar, but like the life of the Church all of us as individuals go through seasons of life, and perhaps using the Church year as a guide it could help us to grow in our faith when we encounter new seasons personally in our own lives. 

In my experience of 54 years, I have progressed through many seasons of life - I am actually in the throes of one right now in all honesty.  In my own experience, a seasonal change tends to happen with a crisis or a period of adversity - income may be drastically reduced or lost, a sickness may be experienced, the death of a loved one, etc.  The adversities tend to either be mild and short, or they can be prolonged and increasingly difficult.  Let me give you a "for instance" that is a composite of my own experiences.  Let's say that for years you coast along with no significant change in your life - you are generally happy, and you have settled into a comfortable routine.  Nothing wrong with that, and we all would prefer that in all honesty.  But, one day your boss at your company calls you in, and they announce they are making cuts and you are on a layoff list effective that moment.  So, you gather up your things, and although your company has given you an adequate severance package, you start to feel generally uncertain.  But, you also rationalize that with your experience and education, you will find a position fairly quickly. After a short rest of a few days in which you kind of welcome the break and can catch up on those projects in the house you have been wanting to get to, you begin the job search.  You update your resume, you reach out to contacts you already have, and you are constantly cruising job boards and your LinkedIn account on a daily basis.  Your search is slow - no bites right away, but you reason that these things take time so you keep on.  However, weeks go by, and then months, and that generous severance package ends and you are also having to rely on savings and credit accounts just to meet your basic expenses.  And, those expenses are piling up.  You begin to get concerned about how you are going to meet your next month's rent or mortgage payment, and thus you start to haggle with the landlord about working out some sort of arrangement.  You have never been late on rent before, and it is unsettling to you now.  As time goes on, income and other resources begin to trickle and then dry up, and you may find yourself applying for assistance to survive.  You get approved for some programs like SNAP, but they also are limited.  At this point, you are over a year since your layoff, and things are really looking grim - the landlord has put a court notice on your door, and no job leads are coming in, as all you are seeing on your email feed is junk.  You grow frustrated.  But, in that moment, you get some internal insight as to what may be happening - your time at where you are is coming to a close, and you feel a leading to look for a new home or even to change career paths.  So, if you are a religious person, you begin begging God for guidance - it seems silent though, and you get frustrated with God and start bargaining, putting out "fleeces," and even getting into some nasty shouting matches with God in which you call him every name in the book for not being there for you.  But, in the midst of that, something happens - from deep inside, you get this feeling that everything is going to be OK, and that you need to stay focused. Situations in your life continue to intensify, and at the point where you are about to give up, a breakthrough happens - you get a sweetheart deal from a potential employer, but it does require you to relocate.  This is the start of a new season in life for you, in other words.  If you take it for what it is, then you start seeing so many things fall into place, and you step out boldly into that new chapter of your life, and your stability is restored.  This experience has happened over and over again to me. I am sure that others reading this can also relate.  So, what does this all mean?  Let's unpack it some.

The first question that comes to mind for me personally is this one - if God wants me to step into a new season in life, then why does it always take intense adversity to motivate me to make that step??  We all hate adversity, and to be honest, I still don't understand why it happens.  But, an idea I have that may possibly offer an explanation may be this - it takes a little adversity to jolt us out of the comfort zone we have been in and motivate us to forge ahead into a new chapter.  It puts me in mind of a story I read in my childhood called The Rose and the Ring, a fictional satire authored in 1855 by the British novelist and illustrator William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863).  Although better known for his work Vanity Fair published in 1848, this satirical fiction story is what I am most familiar with regarding his work. The story itself centers around two individuals - a girl named Rosalba and a young slacker prince named Giglio.  When both of these individuals were born, they were heirs to their respective thrones - Giglio to the fictional throne of Paphlagonia, and Rosalba to the fictional kingdom of Crim Tartary.  However, Giglio's father dies soon after his death, and his corrupt uncle takes the throne and names his own daughter, Angelica, as his heir with Giglio relegated to a secondary life.  In Rosalba's case, her father is overthrown by a nobleman named Padilla, who executes her parents and she is left as a toddler alone in the palace but finds her way into the woods where a group of lions cares for her until she is discovered by the Princess Angelica and made a sort of maid-in-waiting to the young princess, who treats her as a slave.  Now, back to the birth of both Giglio and Rosalba, a matronly old woman called the Fairy Blackstick who serves as a sort of counselor to both royal families comes to the birth celebrations of both young heirs, and when everyone presents gifts to the new prince and princess in their respective kingdoms, all the Fairy Blackstick does is touch both gently with her cane, and her "gift" is "a little misfortune."  The mothers of Giglio and Padilla's son Bulbo though had their own gifts - Giglio's mother possessed a magical ring that made the wearer very beautiful and desirable, and Bulbo's mother had a rose that did the same thing.  As Giglio was really in love with his cousin Angelica, he gave her the ring, and she rudely rejected it and threw it out the window.  But, when Bulbo comes on a diplomatic visit to the Paphlagonian court, Angelica is smitten with him.  In the meantime, the fortunes of both Rosalba and Giglio diminish quickly - Rosalba is accused of trying to have an affair with the king, and she is coldly thrown out of the Paphlagonian palace.  Giglio is accused of another crime and has to also leave.  In their despair, Giglio decided to educate himself at a university, and Rosalba, after being discovered by a huntsman in the woods, is recognized as the rightful heir of the throne of Crim Tartary and her usurper, Padilla, is quickly overthrown.  In time, Giglio and Rosalba come together, without the rose or the ring, and they eventually fall in love and marry, being now the rightful rulers of their respective kingdoms which are now united.  Fairy Blackstick then reveals why she gifted both of them with misfortune.  In Giglio's case, it transformed him from a slacker to a capable leader, and with Rosalba it created a compassionate and humble heart she would not otherwise had possessed if she were raised as a spoiled and vain princess like Angelica.  The lesson in Thackeray's story is that adversity is what builds character, and without adversity at some points in our lives, we will never achieve the potential God gave us because we will grow too comfortable and not take on the challenges to expand who we are.  It's a good lesson overall, and as we all face changing seasons in life, we should probably and properly view those as growth experiences.  Often, unfortunately, we only get that in retrospect, as we feel overwhelmed by adversity in the moment.  The challenge then is how to stay focused and see the bigger picture when so much is being thrown at us.   Uncertainty is a scary thing, but we also need to overcome uncertainty with vigilance - we need to forge on and get done the task at hand, and not obsess over the situation of the moment, as the fear of that can paralyze us if we give it more attention than it deserves. 

Like the lesson of "a little misfortune" in Thackeray's story, another thing I have experienced in life is that often when we move into a new season of life, there is a disruption in our comfort zone - everything is shaken up it seems, and it is not a pleasant experience.  I hate that, and I am sure that others who have experienced it do too.  But, much like Jesus used agricultural metaphors to teach lessons in his parables, you look to agriculture for this answer too.  After a harvest, a field lays fallow - nothing growing or disturbed in it - for about a year until the next growing season begins.  However, during that time, a lot of weeds, rocks, and other things spring up over that field, and although it is a quiet and serene picture, nothing is going to grow in fallow land.  So, what needs to happen?  The soil has to be plowed to prepare it for sowing new seeds.  This means clearing out the weeds and other debris that have sprung up since the previous harvest, and a disruption to the field happens when the soil is rotated and tilled.  The initial appearance of this field is now not pretty - it is plowed up and looks desolate.  But, the plowing did two things.  First, it cleared away necessary debris and weeds.  Second, it also refreshed the soil by aerating it and allowing the rains to saturate it and make it ready for planting.  It is at this point the new seed is planted, and in the next several months it will grow into a bountiful harvest.  New seasons, therefore, produce new harvests, and that is the lesson here.  

If you are going through an adversity situation now, it could mean that your soil is being plowed and cultivated so a new season of planting can begin.  It doesn't look pretty, and you are wanting it to get over quickly, but what that means is that you are being prepared for a new season in life.  Therefore, keep focused on what you need to take care of, and don't let the adversity overwhelm you.  That way, when the new season comes you can enjoy it.  Thanks for allowing me to share, and have a good week.