The Gift of Empty Spaces

I wanted to share these beautiful words from Red Barn.

This gift (empty spaces) takes me down a path I may not have chosen otherwise: emptiness, brokenness, darkness, without-ness.  The invitation is there, I have only to cross the threshold.  And I am discovering that there are layers to this threshold, layers of emptiness and brokenness to live through.  Perhaps this is what John the Baptist spoke of when he said, “Prepare the way.”  What if prepare isn’t about pulling out all the Christmas boxes from the attic or basement in order to get the house just right or about baking up a storm but rather it’s about emptying, being without, getting rid of, all in order to make room?  Could it be that it’s in the empty spaces and brokenness where there’s room for Emmanuel to be born?

“You hollow us out, God,

so that we may carry you,

and you endlessly fill us

only to be emptied again.

Make smooth our inward spaces

and sturdy,

that we may hold you

with less resistance

and bear you

with deeper grace.”

-Jan Richardson, Night Visions

Comments

[yurfan]

"The final mark of greatness, I think, is emptiness. That is true of music, painting, of anything. The less you can do it with, the more powerful you are."
-- Bono