Journey to the Common Good

Discovery. AWM

I’ve been released from physical therapy with objective accomplished! I went because of hip pain. Surgery was suggested but I wanted first to see if I could avoid it. To be honest, I didn’t go to PT with great optimism. The exercises are boring. They are precise and require keen attention from mind to body. They take time. After a couple weeks I was not impressed. But. I continued. And after two months I have been discharged. I’d say I am 95% pain free, stronger, and not as hesitant to do what I want to do. I also know my limitations. I feel good! And, I must continue the exercises.

My PT experience reveals a truth about my life experience. The tasks I have undertaken that have proven to be the most rewarding and fulfilling are ones that required diligence – sometimes through boredom, always with focus, and definitely requiring commitment. Whether it is learning a new exercise, learning foundations in order to play the piano better, my doctoral projecty, or my spiritual life.

There are enough years behind me that I can trace my life journey and see many ways in which I have grown. Deeper and more expansive at the same time. I didn’t make this happen. I did not welcome the challenges that broke my heart open and enlarged it. I did not plan the unexpected joys and relationships that enrich my life. But I guess I made myself available through an often mundane yet lifetime of spiritual commitment. There is so much I cannot understand when I am in the middle of it. Even in retrospect I still may not understand. But with reflection, I see how my spiritual ‘exercises’ sustained me and are bearing fruit over time.

What is that fruit? Hmmm, how shall I name it? Maybe it’s like this…when a tree is planted, its first years are spent absorbing nutrients, expending energy in growth, spreading its roots deeper and its branches wider. All the time gaining strength as it moves through seasons. One day, a bud appears then a blossom that becomes fruit. And what happens to that fruit? It feeds the community around it. The tree was never meant to live unto itself. But grew into its purpose – whether that is to provide shade, beauty, a place of rest in its branches, lumber to build, or fruit to share for the nourishment of others.

Physical therapy, to spiritual commitment, to trees. Seemingly unrelated – but each requiring tending and patience to build strength, discover who we are and the fruit that is ours to share with those around us. Because we are created to be in community for the common good, not ourselves alone.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.

John 15:5

In this together…