“O” as in Organic.

I have been using the metaphor of gestation and pregnancy to describe my journey into writing.  The “pregnancy” was long – I am thinking close to twenty-five years now.  I started writing in elementary school.  When the house was asleep, I would write out stories on lined notebook paper and then tuck them away in my closet.  I wrote in a journal faithfully through high school and college.  I wrote from my soul – it was honest, and it was dark.  In my mid-twenties I started graduate school and continued writing.  Up until then, I wrote only for myself.  During this time, a vision seed was planted – someday I would write for a larger audience.  It took another several years for that seed to gestate before I went into labor.  

The labor process was painful – it meant letting go of doctoral studies (and thus quitting something I had started for the first time in my life.)  I had felt a calling on my life.  I felt the Spirit leading me to turn my energy toward the art of therapy rather than the science.  I was also feeling the push to integrate the wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Saints, and other religious sages into my theoretical framework of psychotherapy.  This also meant if I were to fully listen to the Spirit, I would need to reconcile my angry heart with God and the Church. 

Labor also meant pushing out a major block.  I vomited up my silent story and allowed a few trusted friends to read it.  I had to bring in witnesses to my secret shame – to confess my story.  I could not be authentic with my writing if I was always worried my secrets seep through my protective barriers.  That was the final push before the baby emerged.  Writing (and healing) evolved organically.  The threads of my experience were slowly woven together to reveal a new tapestry.

I share this story to say that the pace growth and healing cannot be forced.  It must evolve organically.  This is not to say that we are passive bystanders in the process.  We are co-creators.  We were born as uniquely designed beings created for a Divine purpose.  We are inundated with experiences that add to the narrative of our lives.  But we choose the path of cultivation.  We choose to nurture or neglect the soil of our lives.

Throughout my writing “pregnancy”, I had the choice to abort.  I could have wiped out the idea all together and focused on academics and secular success.  In many ways, that would have been the easy path.  Instead, I chose to nurture the vision and listen to the calling.  This translated into softening my heart, humbling my spirit, and dealing with my anger.  This was neither an overnight nor a painless process.    

I could have chosen to keep the “child” but neglect it.  To use the metaphor of a garden, I could have ignored the weeds that needed to be pulled.  Weeding the garden is hard work.  It means spending time on our knees working through the dirt.  Sometimes weeds start out looking like plants – they can be deceiving.  The more we spend working in the garden of our lives, the more quickly we can discern weed from fruitful plant. 

The investment in our growth will bear fruit.  When we fill our minds and souls with nourishment (such as sacred reading, deep conversation, and honest confession), growth will happen.  It may not always happen at the pace we desire, but we can rest assure it is there even when it is not obvious. 

Next . . . “P” and in Promises.