Awoke. Asleep.

Some days I awake ready to tackle whatever awaits for me in the day. I often have no clue what to expect but there is a quiet sense within me, a kind of spirit, that lets me know that whatever is coming down the pike I have all that I need to meet it head on and deal with it accordingly.

​My dear friend Matt who, by tapping into his sense, can look at all the cans in the cupboard and whatever produce is in the fridge and transform it into a delicious meal for everyone to enjoy. Some days I wake up, not knowing what I’ll make of the day but I know I have all the right ingredients to turn it into something worthwhile. 

Then there are days where I got nothing. The cupboards in my head are bare. The shelves and drawers of my heart are empty. And I don’t know what I'm going to make, or how I’m going to eat, much less be ready to deal with the hunger of those who rely on me to fill them.  I awake to find nothing but a void of space, light, time, and breath. It's like that sense and spirit have gone out for breakfast without me. ​

Yesterday was such a day. Empty. Starving. Abandoned.  I could hear the engines and hammers of life around me but not the echo of my own heartbeat within. I suspect we all fee that way at times. Like something is missing. Stolen away in the night. A runaway that leaves no note or any trace behind. 

There are those times, those days or weeks or even years, when you open youself up and see nothing. The pages in the story of our life are ripped out. Or worse, they're erased. The lessons of your heart forgotten. Even the sense of spirit, or nagging hopelessness missing.  That was yesterday. I sat in the kitchen wondering where it all went? Looking at reminders of the fullness of life that others were devouring like cereal in a bow full of milk. I sat there, literally on a “pouting chair” that someone gave us years ago. Don’t think I didn’t notice the irony. It’s what got me thinking. At least I still had irony. And if I have that, there must be more in me.

I looked around at that space between me and the rest of the world. There pictures and pitchers, coffee pot and crosses, a stack of mail and  a single phone charger...all silently shouting at me. Their own spirit sensing my emptiness. They could feel what I could not. That  I needed to be recharged and filled by the very things I be already been given.

The spirit I needed was there, but like the silence within me I couldn’t see it or here it. But it was there - in that space between me and the cupboards and fridge. That invisible energy between atoms and molecules that made up the air I was breathing was a scared space. The spirit and hunger together feeding my soul. 

I'm guilty of always waiting around for the Spirit to come, often forgetting that the Spirit is always there. It's never left nor has it ever run out. Just as some still look for God out there in a far off heavenly sphere, many of us still think God's Spirit is out there too. Even in my emptiness the Spirit is doing stuff, making things happen. Because the Spirit is always here, in the space between everything. 

Science proves this idea, too. Revealing to us that the engery of the universe is not in the particles and planets, but in the relational space between them. It's not easy to measure, or control, or predict what it's going to do, or inhibit it from doing what it wants to do. My friend Matt calls this science. But I call it Spirit.  

Yesterday was that day. A day that I would be surprised all over again. And again. Before I knew it my heart felt full again. I guess there are those times when you have to leave or abandon your own skin to put on someone else’s. To tap into their stocked cupboards and refrigerator to make something out of nothing. Maybe we have to be empty from time to time to be refilled with fresh ingredients.

Maybe sometimes we have to let others prepare a meal instead of always doing it ourselves. When we let the Spirit that fills that invisible void make sacred the emptiness inside us, we are never really truly hungry even though we crave and starve for more. Life is delicious that way, isn't it. Today, I am going to stuff myself full of all that it brings.  (Burp!)