Summer As A Spiritual Season

SAT., JULY 27, 1985, 5:31 AM
FARM, STUDY

You are here, o son, before the sun rises on this cool summer morning, ready to receive insights from the Holy Spirit, your Teacher and your Friend. As your mind bounced and rolled in your attempt to “clear” and be receptive to My presence you had fragmentary thoughts of summer, and I shall use these and add still others. It is not a quiet morning, certainly, as the wheels of industry roll early.

Each season of the year is a spiritual season, but each has certain qualities that make it distinct from the others. Warmth… even heat… is an obvious quality of summer, and spirit, at its best, is warm… even hot. As spirit is strong the whole personality is warmed. As spirit is being exhibited relationship heat up and have a warmth that makes more constructive action possible. You are not much bothered by summer heat; on the other hand, some people almost cease to function as the temperature rises. Likewise (though the persons or groups are not necessarily analogous) some persons thrive in situations where much spirit is displayed, and at the other extreme some are very uncomfortable as spirit abounds, even in human relationships. Summer represents those high, hot moments of spiritual experience, and the receptivity for these is quite varied.

In your own teaching life summer is the season for that special three week workshop that typically engenders so much spirit. It is that special combination of people who take summer courses, the afternoon hours, the themes, and the atmosphere that you are able to create that makes is so. Human/Spiritual Interaction is, of course, the best theme you have had, and so the spirit exhibited and encouraged was as warm as the summer afternoons out here at the Farm. You must repeat that theme, or a variation of it, next summer.

The summer season is the season of growth. The leaves are in abundance. The grass grows. The tomato plants branch, lengthen, and bear. Even this monstrous weed outside your window grows with incredible capacity as the air is warm and the soil is moist. The combination of warmth and wetness makes for growth. In the realm of spirit it is the developing or developed spirit, in interaction with other spirits, in situations that promote such that is the combination that guarantees most growth. Warmth without moisture… growth ceases and withering occurs. Rain without warmth…minimal growth. And so it is, comparably, with spiritual growth.

Summer is the season for vacation… for relaxation from the efforts that the other seasons seem to require. A time of vacation is a time of rest and of re-creation for normal life tasks. It is a change of scene, from luxurious to primitive. In the spiritual realm there is need for this time of change. As life takes on routine, as the intellectual and the physical tend to dominate, the spirit may also “become routine”… in need of rejuvenation. So some experience analogous to a vacation is what the spirit needs. Other concerns slip away and routines are relaxed. Spirit can come forth and be “re-created.”