Invitation to Equanimity

We are entering into the season of autumn, one of the quarterly challenges to our human desire to be in control. As much as we may favor one particular time of year, we cannot keep the seasons from changing. Whether we prefer the heat of summer, the crispness of autumn, the snow of winter, or the greening of spring, we have to wait for our favorite season to cycle around.

This summer I watched the documentary The Green Planet featuring David Attenborough. The series gave me a great appreciation for plants, which do not resist change but adapt to it in marvelous ways. Whether they encounter light, dark, moisture, drought, wind, or predators, they react to outside conditions and their own inner nature by sprouting, growing, reproducing, diminishing, and dying in due measure.

If we pay attention to the vegetation of the green planet that is our home, it will teach us equanimity and the ability to sit with what is. In quietness and contemplation, we come to learn that instead of trying to change what is, we can use our own inner resources to adapt to our conditions. That might mean adjusting our hours for sleep and work according to the seasons, as St. Benedict outlined in his Rule, or using our technological advances to work from home when snowstorms or pandemics hit.

Nature has the power to humble us. However, when we relinquish or desire for dominion over the natural world, it is freeing to realize that we can be partners with soil, water, plants, and animals to nurture life and affirm God’s proclamation about creation: It is good.

Delight and Sorrow

In reading about the lives of medieval female saints, it appears that a great many of them experienced dismal arranged marriages. The wealthy ones attempted to distract themselves with frivolous diversions of society life, but the emptiness of their lives changed only when they had an encounter with God and responded to the love they experienced by serving others.

This is the story of St. Catherine of Genoa, who served the sick at a local hospital, even during an outbreak of plague. As Robert Ellsberg notes in Give Us This Day, “As she grew in love, she grew in her capacity for happiness.” Catherine herself said, “In God is my being, my me, my strength, my beatitude, my good, and my delight.”

Along with the delight of love comes sorrow, as we acknowledge on the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. Mary, the mother of Jesus, expressed delight in God’s goodness in her Magnificat prayer when she greeted her cousin Elizabeth. However, her deep love of her son led her to profound sorrow as she watched him suffer and die. And so it is for all of us.

As Kahlil Gibran observed, “The selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” Cynthia Bourgeault notes that sorrow “…at the same time call[s] forth some of the most exquisite dimensions of love ... qualities such as steadfastness, tenderness, commitment, forbearance, fidelity, and forgiveness.” Thus, as Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don’t know what work they are accomplishing within you?”

Delight and sorrow are companions on our life journey. Despite the sorrow she experienced, Mary’s prophecy was fulfilled: all generations call her blessed. She teaches us that the sorrow that accompanies love will bear fruit because love always begets more love.