By Fr Ron Rolheiser, OMI
THERE’S a difference between being in bloom and being fruitful. Take a flower for example.
It begins as a wee bud, hardly noticeable, and eventually in full bloom grows into a beautiful flower. In full bloom it’s very noticeable. This is its optimal moment of beauty, of being admired, of glory. But this isn’t its final purpose nor indeed its fully mature moment. At this point it is not yet fully fruitful, albeit it’s bloom is beautiful, and is giving something special to the world. But it only becomes fully fruitful later, when its bloom has withered as it is dying. That’s when the flower gives off its seed and spreads its seeds for new life.
There’s a life lesson in this which we struggle to understand and accept. We understand the bloom, but not the withering. We accept the bloom, but not the withering. We find it almost impossible to believe that our most life-giving moments might come after the bloom, in the withering of the bloom.
We can see the primal example of this in Jesus. During the peak of his ministry when he is very popular, doing miracles, drawing crowds of thousands, and people are pressing round just to touch him, his ministry is in full bloom. He is fruitful and is already giving life to others, but not nearly in as deep a way as when his ministry withers, when the crowds abandon him, when he is humiliated and scorned in his passion, and when he dies helpless, abandoned by most everyone.
Like a flower, in his dying he spread the seeds for new life in a deeper way than he could when, metaphorically, he was in full bloom.
The renowned mystic John of the Cross employs this metaphor at the heart of his spirituality. He writes: “The deepest center of an object we take to signify the furthest point attainable by that object’s being and power and operation and movement.” For him, unlike how we normally conceive of this, our deepest center is not the virgin spot inside our heart and soul. No. For John of the Cross our deepest center is the furthest point of natural growth (aided by grace) that anything or anybody can reach in this life.
For a flower, as we saw, this is not its bloom, rather it’s when the flower gives off its seed in its withering. The same is true for us as humans; our deepest center is not our bloom, namely, the beauty and energy of our youth. Rather, our deepest center is the fullest maturity our soul can attain in this life, and normally we reach this sometime after our physical bloom has begun to wither. This may sound somewhat morbid, but viewed in a deeper way, it’s anything but that. Allow me an example:
Take our normal human sexual development. What’s its deepest center?
Its deepest center is not its bloom, namely, that time in our lives when our bodies are most attractive and our desire for sexual intercourse is the strongest. Nor is it even after we have given birth to new life through sexual union, albeit that is a wonderful fruitfulness and one of the ultimate intentions of God and nature in creating us as sexual beings. That’s a deep center though not sexuality’s deepest center.
It is not good for the man to be alone! Our sexuality is meant to take us beyond our aloneness. Thus, our sexuality relentlessly drives us outward, beyond ourselves, towards community of life with others. But aloneness is not easy to overcome. We can be very lonely, even while having sex. As a married colleague once shared with me: “What’s lonelier than sleeping alone? Sleeping alone when you’re not sleeping alone.” Also, when we are still developing in our sexuality, sexuality’s spontaneous urge is to possess beauty rather than admire it – and this still leaves us alone.
What takes us beyond our aloneness? Standing before beauty and giving it the pure gaze of admiration. At that moment our ego no longer separates us from union with others, and for that moment we are no longer alone. We have reached our deepest center.
Our deepest center as a sexual person is when we can look at someone else (for example, a child or a grandchild) and give him or her the pure gaze of admiration. It is when we can look at energy and beauty in full bloom and admire and bless them by seeing them as God saw creation at its origins: It’s good! It’s very good! In the gaze of admiration, we bless creation in the same manner as God blessed Jesus at his baptism with the words: “This is my beloved child in whom I take delight!”
When we are in full bloom we are admired; but we only fully overcome our aloneness when we stand in admiration of the energy and beauty of others and of creation and spontaneously utter words of blessing.
Used with permission of the author, Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser. Currently, Father Rolheiser is currently serving as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio Texas. He can be contacted through his website, www.ronrolheiser.com. Follow on Facebook www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser.
