The Ripening of the Soul (Blog)

Spiritual conversion may begin with our effort to attune ourselves to the perceived will of God, but its fulfillment comes only with the end of our willfulness. So, real spiritual refinement is voluntary, not willful. The first action is based in self-knowledge, the latter in the unremitting wish "to know."

This voluntary ripening of the Soul is the way to the ground of her latent and secret sweetness. And for any fruit to ripen in the garden of God's Life, the properties of its matter must go through a process of conversion.

Now, for the grape or pear this conversion takes place naturally enough on the vine or limb. The fruit itself neither suffers from that innate resistance which Great Nature brings to bear beneath its skin, nor does it rejoice in its overcoming as it finds itself slowly softening and sweetening beneath a summer sky.

But, for the seeker of Life the conversion from his or her embittered self, with its hardened heart, into a New man or woman requires a conscious compliance; it takes submission of self involving a willingness to endure his present nature as it ceases to be one form, even before it turns into another.

Going through this conscious conversion is the crucifixion; for the sweetness of God's own Life comes only after the curing of our own. It follows the passing of that life we are in . . . Into a Life we cannot be as we are.

Here is the tearing of the fibers of our very self; not a maturing but a gradual replacement; becoming new in the light of God's birth in us even as we feel ourselves dying to all that we have ever been or hope to be.

Thus knowing that our will cannot be transformed, but only surrendered, does nothing to make the task of going through our conversion less painful, and yet . . . It does make this life of waiting . . . And ripening on the vine . . . Endurable.