I awoke to find a blanket of yellow
covering the lawn.
Other fading leaves still clung to the tree.
Eventually, they would tire,
loosen their grip
and be vulnerable
to the next brisk breeze.
Then, my dear tree will stand
naked
while rain pelts,
winds push and pull
and snow alights her branches,
chilling her to the bone.
Does she dig in her roots,
hold her bark together
until spring comes
to resurrect life again?
Or does she exhale in the wonder
that, for a season,
she provides an unobstructed view
of the sky?
Or maybe,
as she braces and lets go,
braces and lets go,
she speaks,
to her Creator,
–also suffering on a cross–
as one friend speaks to another,
about dying,
desire
and grace.
*A colloquy, according to Ignatius of Loyola, is a conversation with God, friend to friend, from the heart. — The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
In one section of the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius invites us to feel sorrow for the ways sin has impacted us personally and globally, recognize our complicity in the web of evil, and wonder that God has not given up on us. Even now, Christ is healing and reconciling everything.
In Annotation 54, Ignatius directs us to colloquy with Jesus on the cross. In the past, that seemed impossible to me, when I saw him as the victim of my folly and felt flooded with guilt and shame. But I no longer see Jesus blaming me, nor do I believe Jesus had to appease an angry God to atone for my sin. This time, I felt I couldn’t talk with Jesus on the cross because I didn’t want to bother him with my stuff while he was in so much pain.
So I spoke with Jesus about this, as one friend to another. Then I saw that Christ does not minimize my suffering. We are co-sufferers. God sees that we, too, are on a cross of suffering because of what’s been done to us and what we keep doing that we wish we wouldn’t. God doesn’t take that lightly or leave us alone in it. –Esther
An Everyday Pilgrim 