I have a morning routine: Up early. Coffee on the back porch. Then my readings. My parish gives out a book every Christmas that contains each of the daily readings. That’s what I read first. Then I read a passage from Jim Manney’s What Matters Most & Why and finally I read 2024 A Book of Grace-Filled Days, Joseph Durepos. Then prayer.
This morning as my husband and I sat with our coffee, we heard a loud sound; as loud as a gunshot and we saw a bright light. No, it wasn’t God… It was the power in the neighborhood. “Well, there goes a transformer.” my husband said. It seems to be a common problem when vines grow up the poles the conductive tissue of a vine’s vascular system can transfer electrical current causing power outages.
Our usual routine shifted a bit. I got a quick bath (gas hot-water heater) and drove to McDonalds to pick up breakfast. My readings came a bit later than usual. I felt a bit disheveled but settled in on the couch to try my morning routine again. The reading this morning was a familiar one. I had no intention of writing about it. But as I read each of the books that followed the gospel reading, I kept noticing the words ‘rich soil’.
The word ‘rich’ brings to mind something extravagant. But when I think like a gardener, rich has an entirely different meaning to me. Growing up on a farm, I learned that in order to improve the soil, we added manure or compost to it. Our best gardens came from decomposing organic material.
With that image in mind, it occurred to me that if I want to be rich soil, I need look no further than my shortcomings, my character defects, the ways that I have blatantly chosen to do something that I know is not the will of God…
12-Steppers, this is good news! The work that we do in steps 4-9 is the refuse (noun) that magically becomes fertilizer when we do the work that is necessary: we notice where we’ve fallen short (4), we confess it to God, ourselves and another human being (5), we notice our survival skills that no longer serve us well (6), we ask God to help us move beyond them even though we might be afraid (7), we notice who we might have hurt and why (8) and finally we work, with God’s help to make amends (9).
Each of these steps prunes a bit of deadwood from my being (John 15:2). As with any other plant, if you deadhead, the plant’s energy can be redirected to the healthy portion of the plant. God is indeed found in all things. Thank you St. Ignatius for pointing my attention to this fact.
Maybe the transformer blowing this morning sparked my imagination or maybe I listened better during prayer this morning. Whatever the case may be, I realized that those difficult steps that ask me to humble myself and share the naked ugly truth of what I’ve done are actually the very thing that we need to become who God is asking us to be (rich soil).
The voice of the enemy whispers that it is only you but that is a lie. You aren’t the only one who has fallen short. Every child of God falls short. I hope that you will find the courage to work those steps–they lead to rich soil and complete freedom from attachment. Remember the goal of the spiritual exercises is: “the conquest of self and the regulation of one’s life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment.”
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