When will it be peach season? Embracing seasonality

Wow, it’s been a while! But here I am, writing from a hotel room where I hope to sleep before completing a half-marathon tomorrow morning. That’s the simplest explanation for my absence; I’ve been running instead of writing.  But there’s been more to it than that. Heading into the summer I hadn’t given much thought to how this blog might be impacted by the seasons along with other rhythms of family life and even my own creativity. As homesteaders, much of our summer has been spent either in the garden or the kitchen. As a mother, I’ve been reevaluating some pretty foundational aspects of our parenting, as well as investing energy into a handful of special family events. Then as a blogger, I’ve been reminded often of a prayer in Phillip Newell’s Celtic Benedictions.

For the night followed by the day

for the idle winter ground

followed by the energy of spring

for the infolding of the earth

followed by bursts of unfolding

thanks be to you, O God.

For rest and wakefulness

stillness and creativity

reflection and action

thanks be to you.

Let me know in my own soul and body

the rhythms of creativity that you have established.

Let me know in my family and friendships

the disciplines of withdrawal and the call to engagement.

Let me know for my world

the cycles of renewal

given by you for healing and health

the pattern of the seasons

given by you for the birth of new life.

I think it all started with food. Several years ago it occurred to me that people have almost always been able to survive without electricity, refrigeration, and the fossil fuels used to transport food around the world. This boggled my mind. How and what in the world did they eat?! So began… well, everything, really, but specifically my fascination with discovering God’s abundance  throughout  the year. These last few months our family has been relishing the gifts of each season, beginning with strawberries and service berries, then progressing to goumis, blueberries, peaches, blackberries, autumn olives, and now finally apples.

Eating seasonally is also about waiting and learning to live without, thereby challenging ourselves to look with new eyes on how we might be nourished by what is. As such, I’ve also found great satisfaction in learning to prepare common weeds. Peter Rabbit has eaten the swiss chard? No problem; we can harvest the pigweed! The heat has sent all of my lettuce to seed? Let’s have purslane!  A mouse has made her home and been munching on the tubers growing in our sweet potato bed? Thank God the leaves cook down like spinach!

But embracing the seasons isn’t just about eating. It’s also about attending to what needs to be done. We didn’t grow any fun winter squash varieties I’d picked out of the seed catalogue because I missed their planting season, this spring. The other day I noticed that the fence fell which had been protecting next year’s spring greens. Thus, the chickens had scratched and eaten all of our seedlings. Winter is now too close to begin anew. Early and mid-summer, on the other hand, are not the seasons for planting but for weeding. Where I missed that season I compromised my harvests. And then there’s protection from pests. In order to grow food without chemicals, it’s important to know the life-cycles of our biggest threats. A few years ago a Colorado Potato Beetle infestation ruined one of our crops in a matter of days. The same is true of Squash Bugs. This year we faithfully picked them off (by hand!) for about two weeks when they were first hatching, so they never became a problem for us. There’s a certain window in which we have to do things.

We westerners have been formed in a world where we can pretty much have and do whatever we want whenever we see fit. But it’s not real. We can’t have it all. We can’t do it all. It’s a world created by human ingenuity to project what we wish to be true. We so easily fall prey to this deception, but eating seasonally allows us multiple opportunities each day to practice both healthy restraint and righteous indulgence. And my kids are getting it. I can’t describe my delight over the course of the summer when their questions turned from “but why can’t we have those peaches (grown in Spain)?” to “Mom, when will it be peach season in Michigan?” I don’t remember the context, but at one point I asked them “What would happen if we planted peas at the beginning of the summer?” I didn’t know how Adam would respond, but was thrilled when he concluded that “They won’t grow. We plant peas in the spring.” I asked a few other such questions, before making the connection that the same is true in our lives. For everything there is a season.

And so I haven’t been writing.

This has been a season for milestones and experimentation in the life of our family.  We’ve spent a few nights sleeping out on our porch. We’ve tried some new ways of practicing Sabbath, including overnight coffee cake for breakfast and campfires at dinner. We celebrated our first “Family Day” where I wrote out our story and we began a rock memorial of God’s faithfulness. We prepared a special breakfast to honor Adam on his first day of preschool.  We anticipated Christ’s return by reading Scripture and savoring the sweetness of honey and apples during the Feast of Trumpets. We even went camping for the first time!

It has also been a season of reevaluating some key aspects of our parenting and seeking out the wisdom of others, especially in our approach to discipline. Last January I came to know the ministry of Sally Clarkson through her inspiring book, The Lifegiving Home (which I listened to on Audible while cleaning my kitchen).  This summer I subscribed to her online community where I’ve been able to articulate questions and glean from others. Finally, I read her husband’s excellent Heartfelt Discipline, which I imagine will continue bearing fruit for the remainder of our lives. I don’t feel quite ready to write much about these shifts, but want to acknowledge that they are in process. It’s been a season for drawing inward.

And finally, it has been a season of investing in my own physical health. It’s a bit of a long story, but it’s also not. We kept getting sick. I kept gaining weight. We were celebrating God’s gifts from the soil all while my health was declining. The story that I articulated about the goodness and wisdom of God’s creation wasn’t being supported by my own choices; I’m pretty sure my blood sugar isn’t elevated by the foods coming out of our garden! Things needed to change. So I registered for a half-marathon (which wouldn’t allow me to make excuses for not exercising) and made some changes in my diet. It has required both time and energy, but I’ve been repeatedly encouraged that I’m right to prioritize it, at least for this particular season.

Now, as a very long aside please hear me say that I do not think we need to prioritize physical health during every season of our lives! I am ever so thankful that God has given us resilient bodies. Please don’t allow yourself to feel condemned based on this part of my story. God loves us and extends to us God’s great grace! That said, it was time for me. There’s a section of Adam’s favorite book, St. George and the Dragon, where the knight is tempted to take an easier road but is challenged, “go down into the valley and fight the dragon that you have been sent to fight.” This has been my dragon. I’m in Bible Study Fellowship where we recently considered the life of Caleb in the book of Joshua  (see chapter 14). This has been my hill. My Hebron. But it may not be yours. While running I’ve worked on memorizing Hebrews 12, which begins “… let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” It doesn’t say, “let us run the race that was set before [some other hero of the faith].” This has been my race. What is yours?

So. That’s where we’ve been. I’ve been choosing to engage in the work and gifts of this season. Through it all I’ve been thinking about this blog and the Church year. I think I may have read somewhere that the liturgical seasons of Advent through Pentecost (roughly December through June) are when we focus on God’s redemptive work in history (the coming of Christ, Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the birth of the Church), whereas Ordinary Time provides those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere the opportunity to practice God’s redemptive work in creation (the cycles of birth and death; the processes of pruning, tending, and cultivating; the particular gifts of each season; the wisdom of preserving abundant harvests; etc.). It’s certainly been that way for me. With each failed crop and great bounty I’ve been aware of life’s seasonality. A difference, though, is that the physical seasons will come around again. I’ll get to plant my cool winter squash this coming June and try again with spring greens come August. But this was my last summer with these particular 2 and 4 year olds.

What about you? What is the work set before you in these days? In which gifts will you indulge and give thanks?

Oh, and I ran that half-marathon, thanks be to God!