How your January ‘Blues’ may be Speaking to You
January can be such a strange month. The post-holiday let-down tends to highlight emptiness in our lives. With nothing fun to look forward to, there are fewer distractions to keep our loneliness or sadness at bay. Other years the holiday disappointments in unmet longings for relationships linger, or we feel grief at the changing season of our lives.
Perhaps this year we might leverage our ‘January blues" a bit differently.
The concept of emptiness is being reframed for me by a book about Mary, the mother of God, called, The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander. The first chapter in this Catholic classic is called, “Emptiness” and could easily be an entire retreat by itself because it is so rich!
Houselander offers three metaphors for how we might understand Mary’s posture towards God and perhaps carry into our new year.
She says,
In what way are we to fulfill the work of giving Christ life in us?
Are we reed pipes? Is He waiting to live lyrically through us?
Are we chalices? Does He ask to be sacrificed in us?
Are we nests? Does He desire of us a warm, sweet abiding in domestic life at home?
A reed pipe, a chalice, or a nest. Three very different metaphors for what they do and how they function. But here is how they are all the same:
1) Each vessel has to be EMPTIED.
The concept of Mary as a young virgin often emphasizes her purity which of course is true, but Houselander embraces the emptiness of Mary’s womb as the starting place for her receiving her special commissioning.
She writes, “It is not a formless emptiness, a void without meaning; on the contrary it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it is intended.”
The image of Mary offering herself to house the Son of God is one of the key ways I think about calling. We are all created to carry ‘God seed’ of different types to the world, the glimpses of God’s glory mirrored in who we are and what we do.
But how profound to remember that God seeds need SPACE in order to gestate!
And unfortunately, our lives are full. Filled with good things and distracting things, with necessary things and unnecessary things. So much clutter in our minds, schedules, and lives, crowding out the One longing to bring life to the world through us!
How might our January emptiness be speaking to us? What might God be wanting to do in and through that space?
And how might we further empty ourselves to make room for new things? I’m not talking about some religious crack down on our vices, but about making choices to walk away from things that are distractions, to eliminate the fluff in our lives, to simplify our spending, or even to deny ourselves good things, in order to open space for God to birth something new in our lives?
In order to be filled, we have to be empty first. Emptiness can be a good thing.
2) Each vessel has a unique PREPARATION.
A reed, a chalice, and a nest— while each needs to be empty in order to be filled, they are also crafted very differently.
A REED has to be hollowed out with a knife, cutting away the pieces that hinder the music, then delicate incisions made for each hole at the precise spot to create a pure note.
A CHALICE, no matter what type of material it is made from, will spend a significant amount of time in the fire, in order to transform its elements into more pliable material which allows for the molding into shape of a cup.
A NEST is made with all kinds of materials, gathered piece by piece from the bird’s search. Some pieces for the outside of the nest are sturdy and strong, while the inside is lined with feathers and fluff to nurture for others.
We need these pictures of variety in how we are prepared for our calling because depending on our season of life, the type of vessel we are to offer changes.
In this season of mid-life, I identify most with the reed. The years of whittling of my rough edges and the cutting away of things that really aren’t my sweet spot, have shaped me into something quite different from my 20’s. I lean into this year expecting a new song to emerge in a new season of life!
Perhaps you are more of a chalice, in a challenging season of grief, loss, or suffering. And whatever fire you are walking through has melted your sense of self into something unrecognizable. Don’t be afraid! The core of who you are there, albeit it, in a different form, but well underway of being shaped into a beautiful chalice for the Feast!
Or maybe the nest metaphor feels more accurate. As you walk a season of care-taking, you are struggling to find meaning in changing the diapers of a toddler or taking an aging parent to the doctor. But there in the simplicity of presence and meeting basic needs, God seeds are being tended.
You become ‘El Roi - the God who sees’ when you are celebrating your child’s first steps. You become “Jehovah Jireh - the God who provides” when you hold someone’s hand during chemo treatments. There in the every day actions and relationships are mirroring God’s character in a myriad of ways.
Each season of life will require a different process of transformation. A reed isn’t forged in the fire. Nor can a chalice be made by cutting the metal with a knife. Whatever your current forum of formation, it’s needed to produce something very specific.
3) Each brings a unique GIFT to the world.
Because after the preparation, these different vessels are ready to be filled for their intended use.
As Houselander says,
In what way are we to fulfill the work of giving Christ life in us?
Does He ask to be sung, to be uttered as the Word?
Does He ask to be sacrificed, to be lifted up and to draw all men to Him?
Does He ask to be fostered, swaddled, cherished, the little unfledged bird in the human heart?
So many ways to gestate and birth God’s Kingdom in our day! We often have rigid ideas of what it means to make contributions in this world through achievements and production, and those things do have a place. But God’s Kingdom comes in many different forms throughout our lives.
What is your emptiness pointing you toward this year?
A new song for a new season?
A season of sacrifice?
Or the simplicity of finding God in relationship and the ordinary life?
Whatever lies ahead, may you make room for God to plant new seeds. And may our emptiness prepare us to become more like Mary this coming year.
She was a reed through which the Eternal Love was to be piped as a shepherd's song.
She was the flowerlike chalice into which the purest water of humanity was to be poured, mingled with wine, changed to the crimson blood of love, and lifted up in sacrifice.
She was the warm nest rounded to the shape of humanity to receive the Divine Little Bird.
(From The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander)