#commonconversations

a newsletter column by Becky Brooks for our October Beacon.

Intellectually, when I hear the theme of the month for October: Emptiness, I have a predictable reaction (for someone in this culture). Ick, I think. I don’t want to feel that. I don’t want to feel empty. I know there are positive aspects to emptiness, but my initial thought is wariness and avoidance. I want my life to be full. I want my heart to be full. The idea of emptiness sparks in me a visceral huddling, turning left, turning right, hands over my heart. Empty can’t get me!

And yet… I was almost 40 years old before I had language for something that had plagued me my whole life: the open loop. What’s an open loop? It’s that email message I really should answer, but stays in my inbox because I haven’t figured out what to say yet. It’s the pile of books in my office that I need to donate to Book Thing but haven’t gotten around to yet. It’s the conversation that I keep meaning to have with someone, but every day keep not having it. Open loops drive me crazy. I feel like a computer that has too many windows open, downloading too many files, loading too many webpages, processing too much information. 

I love it when my inbox is empty. I love it when my desk is free of clutter. I love it when we finish the box of cereal and instead of putting it, half-full, back into the cupboard, there’s a gap, waiting to be filled with something new. I love it when all the dishes are done and put away and the laundry is folded and the hamper lies empty. I love it when the table is cleared at the end of a meal. I love it when I have an hour to myself and no one is clamoring for my attention—even if that hour comes before sunrise. I love it when one of my kids flops down for a cuddle and I put my book and all my thoughts away for a few minutes. Emptiness can be rare and banal and sublime. 

There’s Kabbalistic idea of God, which I know I’ve shared with the congregation before in story, that suggests that in order for God to create the world, God needed to contract, to leave some space in the universe empty to make room for creation. I love this idea of the vitality of emptiness. What do we make room for when we experience emptiness? What grows in the hollow places? There is no question that emptiness can be incredibly painful. What exists in and alongside the pain? How do we experience emptiness with love? 

That burning of desire?

It is true that we are made of dust

And the world is also made of dust,

But the dust has motes rising

Whence comes that drive in us?

We look to the starry sky

And love the storms in our hearts.

Whence comes that storm?

The journey of love is a very long journey,

But sometimes with a sigh you can cross that vast desert.

Search and search again without losing hope;

You may find sometime a treasure on your way.

My heart and my eyes are all devoted to the vision.