The Empty Bottle (belongs)
And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
The glass milk bottle with the friendly face of a smiling cow printed in black ink has waited, empty, for months. I purchased the half pint of milk while on a two-day personal retreat in September because I don’t think one can adequately prepare for the tsunami of cuteness that hits you upon beholding an adorable half pint of organic farm-fresh milk in a glass bottle with a yellow lid and *a smiling cow* while perusing the aisles of a small town grocery co-op. One look, and I was done. I put the ridiculously overpriced thimbleful of milk in my cart, smug with the knowledge that I would definitely get my money’s worth from Little Half Pint by repurposing it into a vase when I was through consuming its contents.
That September solo retreat was the first time I started writing about BELONGING—a topic that has shaped and shifted across the months yet has remained firmly rooted in my heart along with the notion, “there’s something to this” and the desire to dig deeper. Certain this would be the topic of my next book (let’s disregard the fact, for now, that all the books I’ve written still live in my head), I began to write about belonging with gusto. And then, life happened—as it so often does. Travel, workshops, going off anti-depressants, family and church events, the holidays, and many an hour spent making homemade popcorn, if we’re going to get into to the dirty details of what has felt like creative derailment but which I suspect is simply the stuff of life: imperfect, messy, beautiful, frustrating, boring, exhilarating life. There are times and seasons when I can clearly identify the golden thread of connectivity—is it grace?—weaving its way through each vignette of my life, holding seemingly disconnected scenes together as part of a greater whole. But most of the time, it is as if I am kneeling on the floor with a pile of sharp, shimmering fragments in my hands—wondering which piece goes where, trying to puzzle it all into a single mirrored image that reflects a life of meaning and purpose back to me.
In the midst of it all, a glimmer: In December, I learned that a friend of mine was having a women’s retreat at her church, and their topic was BELONGING. They were looking for a speaker. Oh! My heart soared. Maybe this was why the Spirit gently led me by the hand into the house of belonging months ago. Maybe this piece connected to that piece. Invited to speak, I’ve spent the last month preparing to share about the belonging I’ve come to experience in silence and solitude with God. The retreat was this past weekend, and experiencing the joy of belonging in community after wrestling with it and writing about it alone for months fulfilled a longing I didn’t know I had until I stood behind a microphone and looked out over a roomful of beautiful Image-bearers, each with her own journey and scars from wrestling with belonging until daybreak, blessed and renamed in the process.
When preparing for the retreat, I received a picture of the Father lovingly wrapping a handmade quilt around our prodigal shoulders, welcoming us home. So imagine my surprise when, upon entering the retreat space last weekend, I beheld a stack of cozy rolled shawls with handwritten notes such as “You belong with me—God” attached to them as gifts to each attendee. When I asked about them, our retreat coordinator shared that she had received the image of God as mother, lovingly wrapping her shawl around the child who’s climbed into her lap for warmth, connection, and safety. Maybe God was serious about this belonging idea; even the images God had given both of us belonged together. I began to marvel at how vast, deep, and available the belonging of God is to all who call upon God as Father and Mother.
On the last night of the retreat, I said goodbye to the community of women I had come to love and respect in just a few short hours of intentional connection. There is something special about a group of women coming together to listen to the heartbeat of Jesus—something unquantifiable and precious. In the act of gathering together, we declare to ourselves, each other, and the world that the things which threaten to divide us are of little importance compared to the One Thing necessary. “Don’t forget to grab a bouquet on the way out!” our retreat coordinator called to me as I left. Near the doorway was a large bucket of fresh floral arrangements, a parting gift of beauty to take home. As I walked towards my car, I gripped the red, orange, and white flowers I’d chosen like a torch in my hand—grateful for their reminder of the warmth and connection I’d experienced that weekend.
Upon arriving home, it became particularly important to me to find the perfect vessel in which to display my Belonging Bouquet. I tried out several vases, but nothing seemed to fit. In one final attempt, I knelt on my kitchen floor, reaching into the back of my glassware cabinet (which is really just a catchall for kitchen items that don’t fit anywhere else), and my fingertips brushed something cool and smooth. And there it was—the long-emptied Half Pint of Good Cheer, patiently waiting for the day it would be filled—the very vessel and laughing cow which companioned me on my initial foray into belonging on that solo retreat last September. I dusted it off and tried the bouquet, knowing already what I’d find: a perfect fit. An empty milk jug now filled with the flowers that belonged to it.
Here's what I know: I can become so consumed with searching for the golden thread of connectivity, relentlessly poring over my days looking for meaning and purpose, that I forget to inhabit the fragments and vignettes that are given to me in small, half-pint sized doses day by day. God truly knows I could not handle the whole of it at once. When demanding the answer or greater purpose, I forget to “live the questions now,” as poet Rainer Maria Rilke wisely advises in Letters to a Young Poet:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
We are loved by a God who is able to weave all things together into a pattern laden with meaning and purpose—even and especially when our lives feel like empty, dusty milk bottles waiting to be filled. Maybe you feel like you’re waiting empty now; if that’s you, know this: flowers are coming. Fresh blossoms of possibility, hope, verdant dreams will spill over. You will look around with delighted joy and say, “Who bore me these?” Or maybe you feel like your vase is full and you are enjoying the blossoms of plenty and purpose; if that’s you, hear this: do not fear the emptying. When we are inevitably emptied, it is always unto a greater fullness—a fullness of joy that is beyond comprehension right now.
Wherever you find yourself, may you receive these words from Paul in the book of Philippians as a benediction for your day:
Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray.
Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.
Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.
It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
(Philippians 4:6-7 MSG)
“A sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good.”
May it be so.