WE ARE NOT EMPTY, WE ARE BRIMMING

Have you noticed how full life is?  Not full in a bad sense, not busy-full, weary-full.  But full as in our heart, memory and history are like a comforting duvet slowly settling around us.  We are not empty, we are brimming.  At my age, and many who are younger than me the same, I know about love, loss, death, marriage, birth, success, failure, triumph, misery, awe, empathy.  I can't think of an emotion that hasn't sat with me, wanted or not.  With fewer years ahead than behind--which happens sooner than we expect--my life seems whole.  If you feel this too, you know how miraculous it is to be complete.  Not finished, I don't mean that.  Moving forward but moving as one complete.  No hollowness only depth. 

So often time is the villain of our days.  But not when our past, present and future circle us in an unending loop of being who we are.  Then it can be our friend.  Let's never quarrel with our days.  Each day we are alive, even those we would do over if we could, the losses and griefs that build us, that remind us of our nature, even those, why quarrel with them?  Even the nights we wake in the dark with rampant fears, even those.  We don't want to be some shallow person to whom nothing happens.  If we lose someone, it means that we had someone.  If we feel pain, it is because we felt love or goodness or health.  No one has those good things every moment until death, not even those who die young.  

So, what am I saying?  I am saying that today may feel like Spring to you; it does here in the North Carolina foothills, with snow crocus, daffodils and forsythia in early bloom.  Or it may still be winter with barely buds, the last frosts and warming fires at night.  Or, God forbid, you may be recovering from earthquake or other natural disaster or live in Ukraine with your back against the wall, or be living with the fears and trials that come to each of us.  

But if you have faith, your God is with you.  Your life is full and not in a negative way.  Your heart has found love, your spirit is strong, you are human.  You may be undergoing something that no one deserves.  Or you may have survived something undeserved and have made yourself anew.  Your God may be your base as my God is mine, so that we can touch base as a child touches their mother then runs back to the playground to face their world. 

Let us find comfort in our full lives, in our lives that hold no empty places but over-brim like a pitcher of anointing oil.  Let us accept all that befalls, knowing we can do naught else.  Let us love hard and long and give of ourselves as one who holds nothing back. 

In peace let us so pray.  Nina Naomi