For the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to focus exclusively on the Fruits of the Spirit, which are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Well, let me back up. In my reading of the Scriptures (as well as early Christian texts), the “Spirit” is female. It is the Hebrew word ruach or the Aramaic word rucha, which are both feminine. So, the Spirit is also Wisdom and she leads me into the kind of actions, or fruits, that demand a laying aside of ego.

I can try to focus on this one small Scripture: the fruits of the Spirit are: love… and never get any further. I don’t need any other Scripture or any other task to work on in my life. Because I can’t get through one 24-hour period of time without completely messing this one up. No doubt, I will not be loving to someone. No doubt, I will fail to hold joy. No doubt, I will lack self-control.

Trying to adhere to these fruits, I decided to do something kind for someone. The story: I make miniature houses. They’re built from a kit and are just adorable. Tiny furniture, tiny food, tiny cats. They light up and some play music. I was selling one on marketplace a few weeks ago when a woman reached out to me asking if I would make two exact houses for her and her sister. They had recently lost their mother and wanted two houses with some customizations to include family pictures. I decided to do this for her. Sure, I enjoy making the houses so what’s the problem? It wasn’t about money because I knew I wouldn’t really be paid anything. It was just about trying to do a kindness for another human. She had the house kits shipped to me and I began to build…

But along the journey, I became resentful. She continued to demand more and more changes. More customizations. Can you change this? Can you add that? My ego was screaming: I was doing this out of the kindness of my heart! How dare you demand?! How dare you ask for more?!

When the day came to ship the houses, I became overwhelmed with work and life hassles and did not get the chance to go to the post office. For some reason, my phone was also not alerting me to her messages so 24 hours went by and I had neglected to let her know that I did not have the chance to ship them. Unbeknownst to me, she was panicking. She thought she had been scammed. She was messaging me again and again. Threatening me: I know where you live. I’ll bring the law with me. Everyone will know what you are.

When I saw her messages the next day, I was irate. Bitch. How dare you.

It took me a minute to calm down (okay, a few hours stomping around my house having imaginary fights with her in which I always came out the winner) but eventually, I came back to: the fruits of the Spirit are love…

Damn it.

Empathy. What might she be feeling? Fear. It was probably scary for her to not hear from me. Sadness. To hope for these houses in honor of her mother and to think it was all a lie…

So, I messaged her and said as much. I apologized for not communicating with her and expressed that it must have been scary to think I was scamming her. She immediately messaged back with: thank you.

Then… yesterday, I found my son in a puddle of his own vomit. She almost died. He’s in the hospital now. It was also the hearing for my brother’s murderer. She plead guilty. So much happened today…

Damn. She sent a picture of her son on the ground. Could she be lying? Sure. Do I care? No. She is obviously a woman in pain. Human-to-human, woman-to-woman, mother-to-mother, I felt love. I felt kindness. I felt gentleness.

This was never about or for her. It was for me. It was about taking on the fruits and living as my Mother Spirit would live. She likes me and she loves when I take her example, put aside my ego, and live in the way of love.

I’ll fuck it up again tomorrow. But for today…