Re-flect

I pause and watch the leaf hang on, just barely, until the last second.  And just like that, with a final gust of wind as weak as an exhale, it flutters off the branch.  Down it falls, and soon gathers at the foot of the tree.  Beautiful, but expended.  Useful, but no longer in use.  Burnt out, broken down, out with a blaze of glory.

I wish my descent to dust was that beautiful.  It hasn’t been. But I am spent, I am useless, this year has broken me down.

In all my failings and floundering, pondering and grieving, planning and disassembling plans this year: I finally have a moment to stop and look beyond my doing.  There has been so much action and reaction, but so little reflection of what is going on behind it all, inside me.  Sure I talk, I get counselling, I write and re-write but when I take away all the big words what is revealed in my inner world?

The hungers that drive me, the wants and needs that never seem to be satiated.   The relentless striving and puffing up, repositioning myself to look good on the outside when there’s been all too much desolation on the inside.

I am tired.  Like a fish out of water trying to find the sea, I’ve been flopping around. When I’m honest, my disordered desires are leading and I have been following. 

This year has only revealed what is underneath. My soul needs a reno.  It’s time to do something about the broken-down sofa, the mismatched curtains, and the chipped flooring.  Drawing upon ancient writings, spiritual formation guidebooks and suddenly a miraculous amount of margin in my schedule, it’s time to address the inner room of my soul.

October, my favourite month of the year.  An abrupt ending and beginning of a new season finds me on this soul reno journey.

It starts with reflection.  Where was I going before the world stood still and all that was within became exposed?  Anxiety and fears not resting at His feet.  Lust and greed biting at my heels, directing my time and energy.  Planning, oh so much planning, that ended in disappointment.

Where was I headed?  

My first question on this journey is this:  Is my soul satisfied?

Indeed, my abrupt answer is no.  That alone gives pause to all my doing.  If none of the doing ever produces true and lasting satisfaction in me, who exactly is it serving?

Luke 10:41 echoes in my soul and I hear it: “Shannon, Shannon, you are worried and upset over all these details.  There is only one thing worth being concerned about.”

That one thing, the centerpiece of the room, the space where the reno all starts: Christ and Him alone.

All the rest, all of the rest must be anchored to Him and His real and abiding and uncompromising love for me.  The rest of the room is just function.  The rest of the room makes no sense unless it is related to Him.  Nothing else will make sense unless He is the centerpiece, the ONE. 

Is He the centerpiece of your life?  Is His love for you the one and only thing that everything else is anchored to?  Is He the satisfaction of your soul?

Words from Augustine in His work Confessions, not less valid a prayer than when it was first penned over 1500 years ago (re-translated)”

“You stir man to take pleasure in praising You. Because you have made us for Yourself and our heart is restless, until it rests in You.”