Embracing Emptiness
A blessing for all who long
Dear fellow pilgrim,
This week I found myself in need of rest, recovering from a stint in the emergency room, after what probably was a day care bug knocked me off my feet. So I spent the last days in bed, reading, napping, cuddling, and finally giving in into my brain filled with dizzy emptiness.
Finding myself napping in-front of the fire place with my husband reading to our four year old on his lap I was wondering: Isn’t it in the end the little things where our soul finds rest?
And while we still search for the real deal, may be even busily researching or writing or advising on how to be less busy, and how to care more, we almost miss the life which happens right in-front of us. Simple and sweet and quietly.
Just like the moment when our four year old suddenly proclaimed: “I do not want to be baptized in the water…”, commenting on the story of Saul becoming Paul and being baptized in a nearby water from her children’s bible.
“I want to be baptized with a hug and with healthy food.”
*** That was the sentence, dear friend, which would have knocked me off my feet if I wasn’t already down. It so cracked my heart open. While we were still worried that we somehow missed to baptize our child (first she was too little, then Covid happened, then we found ourselves churchless - which is a story for another day) our child declared that we had already baptized her every single day of her life and that we better continue to do so.
And so with my heart cracked open I offer you, dear reader, two things: my gratitude for you being here and for supporting this labor of love, and this humble midweek blessing, a tradition I hope to bring back to this cloister of our hearts this year.
Embracing Emptiness
This wintering season I came across this snowy mountain picture of the German Alps. It was a cold spring day during our last Sabbatical in Munich when a cable car tossed us out on the hill top, the second highest of the German Alps. Our eyes were blinded by all the white of the snow welcoming us to the roof of the world.
Looking at this shot anew reminded me of the essence of all wintering: To embrace the empty spaces, the tuned-down colors, the slowed-down pace, the sacred spaces inside and out guiding our view to what truly matters.
So today, our midweek blessing is an invitation to practice the “art of sacred pausing.”1
To pause a bit within that sacred emptiness.
You can do so by using the image for a Visio Divina, a sacred reading practice of an image.
So just look at the image until it slows down your breath and your thoughts about other things. Things which need to get done or thoughts of worry.
Cover the inner noise just as the snow blanket covers the vibrant life ready to sprout into bloom again soon.
Stay with the image and just look. Look with your inner eye. Listen with your inner ear.
You can also do so by looking inside yourself, where wide and empty fields and mountain slopes lie. The places of openness and not knowing, the places of dormancy and retreat.
Look at them like you might on a winter walk. Let them lift your view to the horizon, slow your breathing, and quiet the chatter.
And may be, suddenly the white space will begin to reveal its secret to you. You will see what you have not seen before. Maybe a bench to sit down and rest. Maybe a piece of sky to relax into. Perhaps a silhouette shaping into a meaningful form…
What do you see?
And
may the depths of winter
with their vastness
and emptiness
embrace you kindly,
cradle what lies
dormant in you,
until the days of
greening.
With great love, Almut
About Almut
Almut Furchert, Dr. phil., Dipl. Psych. is a German American scholar and practitioner, a psychologist turned philosopher turned writer, traveler, photographer, retreat leader and mother of a pre-schooler. She has taught and published on authors like Kierkegaard, Buber, Frankl, Yalom, Edith Stein, and Hildegard of Bingen. Almut is also a Benedictine Oblate and lives with her family in a little college town in MN.
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Thank you Almut. Your reflections upon these texts, from a sick bed no less, shine light on my day; they reflect the LIght Christ! Chris Thomforde
Thank you for this beautiful practice of Visio Divina. And what wonderous words from your little one! Hope you're feeling better as you let yourself rest and recover.