This summer, when we were traveling in France, we drove and walked through parts of southwest France famous for their plums. Plum Village was the high point of the places we visited, where Thich Nhat Hanh was in residence, in the heart of the orchards of plum trees, fields of sunflowers, woods and hay fields. After Plum Village, we stayed in a farm house called Domaine de Touille, high on a hillside in a village called St. Urcisse, near Agen. There on the grounds, the plum tree near the house was fully ripe, and plums fell gently, throughout the days we were there. We picked them up in passing, casually, and bit into the sweet fruit; the taste stopped us in our tracks, and we stood, slowly eating the fruits. The plum tree there became an image of abundance unearned, the grace of a tree in the fullness of time. The ground underneath it was covered in fallen fruit. The plums were small, and rich in taste, and made us think of plum wine. Our host made plum jellies, plum sauces and plum compotes and stuffed their fowl with plums. Here at home, a plum tree grows outside my house, and in the late summer and fall, the tiny plums are sweet food for many birds, and they, too, fall gently, with a quiet sound, like a very heavy raindrop.

Years ago, when I was training as a spiritual director, our teacher compared spiritual direction to the making of fruit jam. First, there is the experience of something offered, without our doing anything, the way a beautiful fruit tree offers her plums. Then, there is the tasting, the discovery, the surprise; then a harvest, and the making of a jelly or jam, a slow process, with many steps, before the beautiful clear jelly is stored away until needed. Then, in the dead of winter, when we take it out and taste it, the whole experience comes back again, the seeing of a tree full of fruit, the tasting of plums, the savoring of its sweet richness. This morning, we are starting a small spiritual direction group here, only four of us, but we’ll bring our memories, experiences, stories, dreams, and prayers, and it will make for a sweet rich conversation. May it be so for you, today.