Intro: 00:00

Welcome to the Infinitely Precious Podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

James: 00:12

Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and it's another opportunity for us to speak together, to continue this companionship, this journey that we're on together into a deeper kind of spirituality. This is indeed the Infinitely Precious Podcast. And I'm so delighted to share this with you. I hope that if it's meaningful to you, you'd share it with friends.

James: 00:41

Feel free to do that kind of thing. And if you want to respond, if you have some questions, comments, concerns, things you'd hope I would address in future episodes of the Infinitely Precious podcast, you can email me at infinitelypreciousllcgmail dot com. So here we are today, and I have to say that something that's been on my mind recently about the spiritual life is the idea of journey, the idea of the path. And perhaps another way of looking at it, another word that has become prevalent for me recently, the word ripening. When I think about the path, I think about something that will go on for as long as we're alive.

James: 01:41

It may go on for eternity. This may be but part of the path, but the only part of the path to which I've been made aware, made privy, is the path that continues throughout our life here. So, wanted to share some thoughts about that path for you and to invite you to recognize that it is a path. There'll be stopping places along the way. You might find a comfortable bench where you sit down and ponder the things that have come to you thus far.

James: 02:20

The things that remain with you, that stick with you, that you're struggling with to figure out how to find, maybe it's a question that just keeps pressing on you or a question that keeps emerging from you and you need to spend some time pondering that question in order to be released, if you will, from it or let go to move forward into the next step and take back off on the, maybe just need to rest. Sometimes on the journey of faith, there's a lot of things, there's a lot of pieces in our spiritual journey that can tire us out, that can make it difficult for us to want to press on. So it's perfectly appropriate to stop along the way. You know, the biblical, the traditional Hebrew Bible, Christian Bible approach to that is the fact that there are regularly periods in our lives when we need Sabbath. That is rest, an opportunity to step back, to recreate, to let our minds rest, our bodies rest, to recognize that ours is not to struggle every minute of every day for all of time, that it's not about what we produce, that it's about the journey itself.

James: 03:52

Now, for some people, it is a matter of being measured by production. I understand that completely. There are days when I try to measure my day. At the end of the day, I think, oh, that was a great day. Why was it a great day?

James: 04:06

Because I accomplished everything on my checklist. That doesn't happen, but I accomplished many of the things on my checklist. And I was left feeling like this journey has been good. But the truth is there are moments along the journey when we need to stop producing, when we need to step back, when we need to catch our breath and rest. So even though the journey goes on for as long as we draw breath and perhaps longer, there are moments when we need to stop and to rest.

James: 04:46

So if you're on the journey, you're at a resting point, if you've hit a stumbling block, you've hit an impasse, a wall that you can't get past, you are not alone. Many of us get to that kind of place in our spiritual journey and it's an opportunity to sit down. And even those moments can be fruitful. And I'm not talking about fruitful from the position of producing things. It can be fruitful to rest because then you have the energy to move forward.

James: 05:21

It can be fruitful to ponder more deeply, to pray about, to meditate, to let go of whatever seems to be holding you back at this point in the journey, whatever seems to be on the forefront of your imagination. It's okay to step back from that. It's okay to listen and create space for yourself. If you're anything like me, part of the work that you do in the world is creating space for others. And so every once in a while it's important to create space for ourselves.

James: 05:59

I attend to the Sabbath every week on a Friday. On Fridays I don't do what are traditionally thought of as the work. I'm United Methodist pastor and as a pastor Fridays I don't check my email. I avoid my electronics, so I don't check social media in general. I take walks.

James: 06:26

I read books. Sometimes I watch television. Sometimes I just sit and take my time and enjoy the day. Sometimes I'll talk to a friend or to my mom or someone else or something else. But taking that step back doesn't make me less about one of the things I do with my life.

James: 06:51

In fact, it empowers me so that the next day I'm more able to engage. I'm more ready to be fully myself in that moment. It is a journey. And so often I think that when we think of this journey, we want to have arrived. Sometimes when we get to that bench at the side of the road and we sit down we think I can sit down here because I'm done.

James: 07:16

I've finished this journey. I have learned all there is to learn. Let me just give you a small warning my friends, If you have reached that point, you are going to probably have a serious awakening sometime soon to realize everything that you thought you knew might not be all there is to know because there is an infinite amount of information in the universe. There's an infinite number of ways of knowing and seeing and experiencing the universe and the divine within it, the spirit moving in and among and through us. And so there are moments we'd like to arrive.

James: 08:04

So many people think, I've arrived. So many people think there is a clear sense of destination. But I suspect that for as long as we draw breath, we have not reached the destination. There's always a little bit further to go, a little bit more to discover, a little bit more to open up, a little bit more to let go of. And that is the journey itself.

James: 08:31

It's not about a destination to which we hope to arrive in this life, it's about learning to practice the process. It's about ripening. Ripening is a confluence of, well, of contributors come together in the ripening of a person's life. The same is true of fruit on a tree. There's the sunshine.

James: 09:00

There's the water. There's the nourishment that comes from photosynthesis on the tree. There is the passing of time and with it ripening. The same is true for us. We are ripening.

James: 09:15

And ripening never stops. Even when we are not ripe in this moment, that is fully present in this moment, there is always room for us to recognize that we're not ripe, we're not present right now, we're not here in this space, to release whatever's holding us in that space, to get up off the bench if you're using the path metaphor, to then step out again and move forward because the process of ripening is a never ending process, just as walking the path is a never ending process. They're really just two metaphors for the same thing, but what I like about ripening is all the passive as well as active ways in which ripening happens. The fruit isn't doing anything in particular on the tree sometimes, just absorbing the sun, just taking in the nutrients from the branch on which it hangs, just receiving the moisture that comes to it, not by its own doing, but because rain came. And then, of course, the oxygen, the carbon dioxide that floats around it and is exchanged, all of that process is part of the fruit ripening, just as the challenges, the tragedies, the questions, the joys, the celebrations in our lives, all of those pieces become part of our ripening.

James: 11:05

The stuck places, as well as the wide open smooth places, those become places of ripening. We can be stuck on the path. We could have been ripe this moment, fully present in this moment only to find ourselves distracted from the ripening process and no longer ripe, no longer present in the moment. And rather than think of it as a failure, we think of it as yet another invitation to reenter the ripening process. It's part of growing.

James: 11:42

It's part of learning. It's not yet another opportunity for us to judge ourselves, to feel more poorly about who we are, to attach some kind of stigma to ourselves, which we are sometimes want to do. It's instead the opportunity to release. And that releasing allows us to return. And that invitation to return just means here we are again, back in presence, back to this ripening process that never ends, at least not in this life.

James: 12:19

And I suspect that we continue to ripen throughout all eternity. That's what I think. Continue to ripen if we are open, aware, present, attentive. The opportunity for us to be in this moment exactly where we need to be and to make the wisest decision we can make in this moment to be ripe is a process that we learn to do over and over again on this ever so beautiful journey that we find ourselves on. So beloved, I invite you to continue on your journey.

James: 12:59

I'm certain you're already on it. Absolutely certain you're already on it. You may be at a stuck place. You may be at an unbelievably fruitful place in that journey where just your eyes are being opened to all the wonders of the world. You could be in one of those doldrum places where you can't seem to move forward, you can't seem to move back, you can't even seem to move.

James: 13:30

And perhaps that's a good place to be for you right now too. Ripening is going on and we get to be a part of it. We get to be a part of it. We walk the path. There are times we get stopped along the path and we realize we get stopped on the path, recognize, then we release the thing that is stopping us and then we return to the path.

James: 13:56

We return to the ripening process. Just some thoughts for today, wherever you are on this beautiful journey, on this beautiful day. May you find peace. And by peace, I mean wholeness, completeness, a sense of integrity held together, of healing. May you find that wholeness.

James: 14:21

May you know you're not alone in all of this. And may you remember that you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. Thanks so much for joining me today. I look forward to joining you again. Until the next time.