Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Seasons and seasoning


Seasoned is a good word. It implies time. I've lived through many seasons and changes of season. To be seasoned is to have lived for a while, to have been gifted with time. To be seasoned is to have gained the perspectives of years and turns of years.

Seasoned also implies additives. We season our food, our language, our love. To be seasoned is to have lived a life flavored by things sweet and sour, sharp and hot, salty and biting. To be seasoned is to have tasted love that sweetens our life, or or love that brings tears to our eyes, or hate that burns into our souls a taste so hot it hurts for a long time.

My life has brought me through two hundred and fifty-six seasons. I just used the calculator and multiplied by four: sixty-four years of four seasons each. I have tasted much of love throughout those seasons. My parents' love for me--which they still give in their nineties! My siblings' love. My wife's love. My children's love. My friends' love.

I lived many years a monk and friar and came to know the love of confreres and of God in ways one never forgets. More about that later.

All of those seasons and all of those loves came to me as a Catholic. I was born on a cold January day, on a Friday evening. Good way to start a life--on the first day of the weekend. As was the custom I was baptized within the month. So my first season as a Catholic was winter. Two hundred and fifty six seasons as a Catholic. So I'm a seasoned Catholic.

Also lots of tastes over the years. How many different herbs released latent flavors and feelings. How many different spices added zest to my life. How much mystery in the interaction of time and taste, changing times and changing tastes.

My hope is that these little messages from a seasoned Catholic might add some spice or gentler flavor to your daily fare, to help you enjoy the changing seasons of your life, to release latent thoughts, or add body to your feelings, or balance to your choices.


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