Now... and Not Yet

            I went blueberry picking this week; many came home (and there was, I admit, much sampling in the fields!) These cultivated bushes are beautiful with huge, sweet, orbs of delight. As I walked along, I noted that some bushes are clearly already picked of the first crop, others are bursting with blue bliss, and most - even in the individual berry bunches - are somewhere in between.

            Ripe berries are a "now and not yet" experience. Normally, we enter into the "now and not yet" conversation in Advent (ironically with blue!) but I reflected that we seem to be at a time where we feel...  somewhere in-between. With the concerns of COVID resurgence, with planning of schooling, even with our public worship being in-building and not-in-building...

            It's different, to say the least. It's also the same; because when we reflect, we are always - always! - at some stage of now-and-not-yet. Life is seldom quantifiable, aside from variables like weight, height, etc. But for the things that give our lives purpose, it wavers.

            Such things are life-giving - praying, reading the scriptures, loving, serving others, seeking God... and we do them, they fit into the now. But because we can always do more... more often, more fully, more deeply, more...*whatever*ly - we are also not yet.

            The good news, in this now and not yet stage, is that we're never done. The prayer never ceases, the reading re-engages, the love never ends, the service continues, the seeking always inspires. And they continue to change for us, as we grow and develop.

            So, much like blueberries in season, we are now and not yet... in some ways, ready to nourish; in other ways, not quite there yet.

            How beautiful it is, then, to be a work in progress - a spiritual fruit that is demonstrably developing, ripening, readying: how lovely to be both now, and not yet, in our journeys.