My Dear Friends,
Fall is a time that is caught between two seasons.
Summer is fading, but Fall has not quite arrived. The days are still warm, but the evenings are cooler. The light changes. Leaves begin to turn.
Creation seems perfectly comfortable becoming something different happening.
So why aren’t we? Why is change so difficult for us?
We so often hold on tightly to what we know—our specific routines, our relationships, our plans, our expectations, our disappointments, sometimes even our anger—because the familiar feels safer than the unknown.
There is actually a name for that uncomfortable place between what was and what will be: the neutral zone.
It’s that uncomfortable time we feel when the old has ended, but the new hasn’t fully begun.
Most of us don’t like it I the neutral zone. It feels odd, not satisfying, awkward, unnerving, and really unpleasant.
Why? Because we want answers. We want solid direction. We want to know what happens next. We want to rush through uncertainty and get our feet back on solid ground.
It’s like when we start a new job and don’t where the pencils are. Or move into a new place and can’t find the silverware. It’s all the little things that make us frustrated and the big things that cause us real anxiety. We don’t like it when we feel unsure of our health, our life’s direction, our relationships and not feeling like we know all the answers.
So often, “instant gratification isn’t quick enough!”
But creation doesn’t rush.
A leaf slowly changes color before it falls. The darkness grows longer before the days begin lengthening again.
Creation seems to understand something we often forget – transition is not wasted time.
St. Francis understood this very well.
His conversion didn’t happen in an instant. There was a time when the old Francis—the young man dreaming of wealth, popularity and military glory—was disappearing, while the Francis we know and love had not yet fully emerged.
He lived in the neutral zone.
And while he was there, God worked on his heart.
Perhaps that is where God does some of His best work in us as well—not only when we know exactly where we’re going, but when we don’t.
Maybe Fall is inviting us not simply to notice the changing season, but to ask:
What is changing in me?
What life neutral zones am I living in right now?
How do I deal with the uncomfortable feelings in my neutral zones?
What am I trying too hard to hold onto?
What is God asking me to let go of?
And is God making way for something new to happen in my life?
This September, don’t be afraid of the space between what was and what will be. Those are the neutral zones of like, and they can be a very uncomfortable and beneficial growth time for us.
Remember, that’s where God is too.
And sometimes the place we most want to hurry through is precisely the place where God wants us to sit quietly preparing ourselves for what comes next.
That’s what Franciscan love looks like!