Tallulah, my pug, was scratching around the back yard this morning, looking like her own version of Pigpen from the old Peanuts cartoon. Her little cloud of dirt surrounded her wherever she went and that’s when I thought, “Boy, do we need rain.” Tallulah’s my dryness barometer and reminds me each day that if my garden is going to get any water, it’ll have to be from the end of my hose. But Tallulah also led me to think about what my spiritual ‘dry’ barometer would be if I had one. While we’ve been talking about Soul Care in our sermon series, I’ve been mulling over dry times in our spiritual lives. These are times when we’re too overwhelmed or distracted to care for our own souls.
What’s your barometer of dryness in your spiritual life? Is it a cloud of cynicism like Pigpen’s cloud of dirt? A wilting of your hope like the end of summer flowers? A drying up of words to speak to God? Mike Yaconelli, in a book called Messy Spirituality, wrote this about our soul life with God:
Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of our lives. Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality, not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws, but because we let go of seeking perfection and instead seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God’s being present in the mess of our unfixedness.
When my ‘unfixedness’ threatens to leave me in a cloud of isolation, I’ve learned to find water instead of just hoping for a cloudburst of rain. I’ve learned to tell a close friend how I feel and ask them to pray when my words have dried up. I’ve learned that a psalm, read over and over, in the silence of the evening, can be a long cold drink. I’ve learned that my feelings aren’t facts and just because I feel God has left me dry doesn’t mean God has. If God could lead the Israelites in the wilderness in a cloud of smoke and a pillar of fire, then God can lead us through the dust of long, dry days.
Those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. John 4:14
Pastor Susan