SUMMER 2024 wrap up: though the seasons change
Deepest thanks for all those who carved ‘The Way’ for our Summer Activities 2024. Culturally, summer is a time of vacation and disconnecting from our private routines. But each year we are blessed to reconnect as a community and receive spiritual life and guidance. This summer was no different, and we are grateful for the abundance of spiritual fruits from this season.
We began on ODP+: What can we inherit, and what can we convey? We continued building on the SNR+ by taking Sincere Steps. We concluded the Summer by reconnecting to our deep ROOTS; a source of both stability and direction. The three workshops provided different dimensions of experience and community, and shared the same elements of truth and love. We give our thanks to everyone’s collective efforts, and to God’s for His protection and guidance throughout our shared journey of deep togetherness and growth.
“What I am asking is would God like to live in this place where you are living right now? Therefore, you must pack up…” – True Father1
With a new season, it’s time to pack up and move. Despite just ending, Summer can already feel a long, long time ago. As we look back, we can also look forward. Entering Autumn, are we prepared for less comfort? Are we renewed in our vision of a new cycle? Are we ready to live as fully when the days are shorter and the nights are cold? Whilst the memories of summer remain, we can become stuck in a state of potential and nostalgia. But that’s not the way to honour the experience. If we look back, it is with purpose: what reflections were both complete and unfinished, ready to revisit and revive?
“Suppose that while looking for the gold mine a miner became completely exhausted, almost to the point of death, that he simply cannot dig anymore; yet if he believed with absolute certainty that only with ten more strokes, he can dig out the gold mine, then what do you think they will do? If it were you, would you continue digging or not? Even if one is about to drop dead, one will continue. Therefore, where is the problem? The problem is in yourself?
Autumn can be an invitation to withdraw and surrender to the day-to-day grind, and the grip of normality. There is ‘The Way’, but there is also ‘the way I tend to be’. However, while still acknowledging the tendencies of a new spiritual season, we need to remember that we are not powerless, we are not a leaf that gets blown by the new winds of Autumn. We are the roots, and we can still grow. As we give thanks for the Summer, are we prepared and ready to do so?
“If you really come to understand that God exists, then you must start packing up. Just like you have to make preparations before you begin your marriage life or move to a new house, to start the life of faith you must start preparing. Packing up in preparation to move is very much like a life of faith…”
“Though the seasons change, your love remains” says one of the last songs that we offered in the last workshop. An acknowledgment of God’s unconditional love towards us, a visual representation that regardless of the natural and necessary transitions of our life, God is present, God is in each season, God is the season.
But maybe for many of us it is not only a question of worshipping God’s love in whatever the time of our life. We must mirror God’s love and respond: though the seasons change, our love remains.
How can our love remain? How can we kindle our inspiration and commitment in darker hours and colder days? As we prepare ourselves to move forward, let’s pack up so that we can get moving with God as our guide. Let’s be light on our feet, ready to step out of our comfort zone and overcome the challenges and new terrain ahead.
As companions of faith, let us stay strong in this time of transition, and let us enjoy another summer together. God bless!
“The reason I am walking this path with all my heart, devotion and life is because this is surely the way, and because I am consoled from knowing the fact that after walking this path, I can pass down to the history of humanity the foundation of all my efforts and hard work”
- The quotes are extracts from p150 of ‘The Way of the Spiritual Leader’ ↩︎
