What I Learned From Playing In The Sink With My Daughter
Matthew Fox (in his book "Original Blessing") talks about how SIN is a refusal to embrace the emptiness or the nothingness that comes with pain.
Why?
Because emptiness (as painful and lonely as it can be) is the only way that something can be filled back up anew.
Right?
My daughter loves to play in the sink. When it's raining or cold outside she will push a chair in front of the kitchen sink and beg us to play with cups and spoons in the water. And so we plug the drain, let the water slowly run, add some bubbles, and let the sink fill up over the course of 10 minutes as she dumps water in and out of cups and spoons.
Inevitably, though, the sink will fill up and needs to be emptied and so we unplug the drain and let the water out so that it can fill back up again.
She hates when we drain it, though, because she thinks playtime is over and so she always cries and says, "NO DADDY NO" ... but what she doesn't always realize is that the sink needs to be emptied because that's the only way it can be filled back up.
Sometimes when pain comes into our lives and we feel ourselves being emptied of happiness and comfort and clarity and joy we yell out to the Divine "NO DADDY NO" or “NO MOMMY NO" or "NO SPIRIT NO" and we do that because we feel like our good times are coming to an end and we can't imagine the sinks of our hearts being emptied of all we thought was good.
And so we resist it.
We flail our arms.
We fight against it.
We lock our fists.
Mathew fox says that this is SIN not because it makes God angry or anything like that, but simply because it has the power to stifle our spiritual growth. Spiritual growth, he reminds us, often happens through the process of the painful experience of emptying so that the Divine can fill us up afresh.
What is draining out of your life today?
Is your job going down the drain?
Is there a relationship that’s fading away?
Is there a season of your life that is slipping through your fingers?
Letting go is hard, but essential. It’s not that we’re letting go of what was to forget about it forever. Rather, we’re letting go of what was so that we can give it proper space in the place of our memories and make room in our lives and in our hearts and in our hands to embrace all that will be.
Spiritual growth comes in all shapes and sizes, but one of those is through the pain of emptying. If you’re being emptied of something today, my prayer is that you feel the closeness of the Spirit with you, that you know you are not alone in this time, and that you can trust that new seasons of goodness and joy await you as you reflect on the seasons of goodness and joy that have gone by.
Much love to you,