“Let us strive to enter by the narrow gate. Just as the trees, if they have not stood before the winter’s storms, cannot bear fruit, so it is with us. This present age is a storm, and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.” — Amma Theodora
Amma Theodora may have lived in the desert, but she understood horticulture.
A variety of plants require a dormant, cold period over the winter season in order to bear fruit the following year. From grapes to garlic, pears to peaches, cherries to strawberries, these fruit-bearing trees, vines and other perennials need the down-time of the chilly months in order to form buds and set in motion the fruiting process, for which we human beings rely on for food (and we’re hardly the only ones).
I live in Georgia, hardly a region with much in the way of cold weather — in the last 33 years (a third of a century!) I can only recall one time we had a snow accumulation greater than one foot (Atlanta was shut down for almost a week). But even with our relatively mild winters, as I get older I find myself feeling less patient with the cold, more envious of my family members who live in places like New Orleans or Tampa Bay. Think of all the folks from Canada or New York or wherever who move to Arizona or Florida — or even just travel south each winter, itinerants known as “snowbirds.” I think Mother Theodora would have rolled her eyes at us, for she had a clear sense that the challenge of the winter makes the abundance of the following harvest possible.
“The present age is a storm,” she wryly remarked, and I can’t help but wonder what she would have thought of the twenty-first century. Certainly our age has its challenges, but can we really say we have it worse than our ancestors during the peasant uprising, or the bubonic plague, or Nazi Germany? The Buddha was as blunt as this desert mother: our life is shot through with suffering. So we have a choice: let it defeat us, or let it temper us the way fire tempers copper, bronze or steel.
If our suffering tempers us, that doesn’t mean we should just accept it: it is in our nature to fight against that which causes us or loved ones or our community any unnecessary pain. But when we pair our innate struggle against the causes of suffering with the radical trust that opens our heart to the healing work of the Spirit, we are empowered not only to persevere in our quest for a better tomorrow, but also to keep the faith, even when the winter seems seem so overwhelming.
Quotation source: Henry L. Carrigan, tr. The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (Paraclete Essentials) (p. 106). Kindle Edition.