Fill 'er Up

I had a blog ready to go last week. I wrote it on Wednesday, then looked at it again on Friday. I tried tweaking it, but by Saturday evening, I gave up.

“I’m not sending it out, it’s crap,” I told the Resident Sweetie. “I am empty.”

(a New Yorker cartoon which expresses a very common phenomenon)

Scary business, being empty. You have nothing to say if you are empty. Sure, you can put out lots of words, but that’s fake news, and everybody knows it.

If a car runs out of gas, it can’t move until you fill the gas tank. If a battery is flat, it can't power anything. Batteries and cars can’t run on empty. Neither can I. “Inner emptiness comes from a lack of connection with your spiritual source of love,” says psychologist Margaret Paul in an article in the Huffington Post. (You can read the whole thing by clicking on this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-paul-phd/inner-emptiness_b_869421.html)

I noodled on that idea for a while, and realized its truth. I needed a fill-up, and I knew it.  So I went to the tried and true places that fill me up and reconnect me to my spirit and my spiritual source of love.

On Sunday, I went to church. Pulling your eyes away from your belly button and looking up, way up, is a good way to start.

While at church, I saw a poster advertising a book study on The Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault. It sounded like a big stretch for my head and my heart, and so I signed up. Nothing like stretching your head and your heart to make room for new ideas, insights, and thoughts to flow in and fill you up.  On Monday, I attended the study. Wow. Yes!

On Tuesday, I took this new book, my journal and  my morning coffee to the dining room table and spent 45 minutes reading, writing, and thinking. Quiet reflection may not fill the tank, but it will show you where the empty pockets of your soul are that need filling.

 Then I put on my walking shoes, grabbed my cell phone/camera, and went down to the woods. How long had it been since I’d visited my sit spot? Too long. Just descending the path into the woods is like entering a temple. A special serenity and light suffuses you, and you are filled with a sense that you are just a small piece of something much bigger than you, something that is incredibly precious and loved by the Creator of it all.

And it was so beautiful down in the woods – the sun was shining through the lime green and gold leaves, the water in the brook was sparkling, and on its surface were little moving circles, created by waterstrider insects. I zoomed in on these almost invisible insects with my camera, and snapped a photo.

The result? Not at all what I’d expected, but beautiful in a new way I’d never seen before.

Now I began looking at the woods and the river with new eyes, and once those eyes were open, I saw things I’d never seen before. These new sights, sounds and smells filled me with delight.

A rotting tree stump became a piece of abstract art.

 The bridge wasn’t just a bridge, it was a home for a spider that had woven a shining web.

Why had I never seen the interplay of light and shadow on the path ahead of me?

And look: an enormous orange fungi right out in the open, and yet I’d never noticed it before in my treks along the well-worn path. Changing one's perspective opens the channels for inspiration and wonder to flow in.

There was more: Wednesday delivered a double dose of nourishment when the TWITS (book club) met – so much to talk about and ideas to explore! – followed by listening to four authors reading at an event. These creative folks sharing their thoughtful and often funny insights, stimulating me even further. And laughter is good medicine for the soul, too.

The week continued with more blessings, some sublime, some mundane: – deep discussions with friends, a successful morning in the kitchen with the RS canning pears, watching a delightful movie on Netflix (A Man Called Ove). When you begin to look at your life with new eyes, you see things that might have passed you by before. All these rich experiences that reconnect you with the spiritual source of Love  were there for the taking -- and yet, I was slowly starving myself.

 It's an old message we seem to need to learn again and again: take the time to stay connected with your spiritual source of love so you'll never be running on empty.

On Sunday, I’ll be working with the children at church. Perhaps I'll teach them an old song that's new again: “Running over, running over, My cup is full and running over.”