Everything we need for growing into a full, rich relationship with God is already available in our lives.We need to pray, stay open, and not become discouraged.A spiritual journey is not a competitive event; we can all be on a spiritual quest.God comes to each of us in the native language of our soul.Gradually the language grows and expands, but no one grows in just the same way as someone else.We need to accept ourselves as we are and keep ourselves open to being changed and shaped by a life lived in growing intimacy with God.
No matter what the weather looks like outside the window, life is warming up. Something in nature knows what it is doing; even if from time to time winter icily touches the napes of our necks with its cold fingers. . . . Woods will fill with black-birds and grackles, and swollen buds will cling like small birds to wet branches. . . . Old oaks sleep as long as they can, while the rest of creation exhibits an aching restlessness to move on. As everything begins to move, an almost forgotten song plays in our chests, the music of beginning again. The early small birds flit here and there on the rising winds; a lone, red-winged blackbird sits unmoving in the empty cherry tree . . . waiting . . . To live is to change, to move through one transition after another, to reinvent one's life, as needed. . . .