This past week has been a big week for us with Clare starting 3rd grade and Nathan beginning Kindergarten. One of the things I look forward to is seeing the papers that they bring home. The other day Nathan brought a sheet home that he was asked to color. When I looked at it, I saw that he colored a bucket full of hearts and stars. When I asked him to explain it to me, he said that we all needed to be "bucket fillers". And then he went on to explain to me that everyone has a bucket that needs to be filled with love and kindness. This simple little routine of asking to see Nathan's work at school was God's way of affirming something that I had been hearing in my own prayer life.
Whenever we meet someone....friend, stranger, family member, or otherwise, we must learn to see the empty heart they hold before us. We cannot assume that everyone we meet in a day feels loved. Everyone we come into contact is looking to us to feel loved. Everyone holds out their "empty bucket" to us and asks us to fill it. Maybe we'll fill it with a genuine smile, a hug, a compliment, a kind word, or a pat on the back. Maybe we'll fill it by praying for their well-being, by blessing them with a monetary gift, or their favorite piece of chocolate. Maybe we'll fill it with an offer to help them in a difficult situation. Maybe we'll fill it with a dinner invitation or an invitation to go to a movie. Maybe we'll fill it with a phone call or a hand-written note.
Jesus was the Great Bucket-Filler. He spent a lifetime helping us be better at loving each other, and we still haven't gotten it right. All you have to do is listen to the news and understand that the people who wage wars are living on "empty buckets". The people who cut people off in traffic and participate in road rage are trying to function on an "empty bucket". And when two people are focused on blaming one another, and cling to resentment and holding grudges, they are trying to get by on "empty buckets". When a mother takes out her especially difficult day on her child, she is living from an "empty bucket".
It is why Jesus felt impelled to remind us of the greatest commandments. To love God with our whole heart, our whole minds, and our whole who selves and to love one another as God has loved us. As simple as it is for us to understand, it seems it is a very hard and complex thing to do. We all arrive in this world carrying an
"empty bucket" and it is filling this "empty bucket" that becomes our life's purpose. We are seekers of "overflowing buckets" from the moment we enter the universe. We are here to discover why our buckets become empty and what we can do to return ourselves to the essence of our nature, which is an overflowing bucket of simple love. We are a people who has become more comfortable with emptiness than fullness. We are a people who are content to be "half-full". And so we try and fill our buckets with other things that we have convinced ourselves to be love: food, sex, drugs, television, web surfing, texting, shopping, gossiping, complaining, self-pity, and judgment.
We take for granted that we know how to give and receive love, but I would tend to bet that on any given normal day, we are probably only using 10% of our full capacity to fill each other's buckets and our own. And on any given day, I would bet that our buckets are, at its fullest capacity. around 25%. We pray to remember what love is, and what love feels like. We turn to God for the grace to remember that our purest nature is love. And when we surrender to Divine Order, all things that we experience in a day, are presented to us as lessons of how successful we are doing at "filling buckets". If we get into an argument with someone over something trivial, we have work to do in the "bucket department." I can tell when Charles's bucket and mine are both on empty. We argue over the dumbest things, and if our buckets had been full, we never would have dreamed of starting in on each other for something as simple as who was supposed to run to the store to pick up milk.
The spiritual journey is all about love. It is less about becoming "perfect" people and more about loving people that are "imperfect". We pray to literally learn how to love loving people instead of loving grudges, blame, resentment, pity parties, and judgment.
Think about it. When you attend a wedding, it is a day when everyone feels wonderful. It is a day when most everyone really believes that love can conquer all. People love weddings because we love love! It is a "bucket filler" day. We are all a little more kind to each other. We are all a little more patient with each other. We are all reminded that the power of love can cause two people to commit and devote their entire lives to each other. We all feel the activity of a loving God. And what is the typical scripture verse that most people think of for their wedding? It is the place in the bible that says what love is, plain and simple:
Love is patient. Love is kind. It is not jealous. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13 4-8
This is the perfect scripture to reflect on at the end of the day.... to take some time and ask ourselves where have I left someone's bucket empty and where did I allow God to fill a bucket through me? In order to learn what love is, and grow in our knowledge of love, sometimes God has to show us what love isn't. It isn't always easy to see where we've failed to fill another's bucket, or our own bucket, for that matter. But when we really get what love isn't, we are less likely to leave a bucket empty. Where have I been impatient? Where have I been unkind? Of who have I been jealous of? Where have I made an arrogant statement or a rude demand? How have I rejoiced in another's faults? Where have I been quick to point out another's failings? Where have I insisted that "my way" is the "only way"? When have I demanded an apology, and then continued to hold onto my grudge even after I've received it? We are called to love as God loves, and that is not easy when we allow ourselves to love the ways of ego more than spirit of truth. We turn to God in prayer to dissolve the demands of our egos and to allow Spirit to grow stronger.
To remember how to love as God did is our life's purpose. In Paul's letter to the Corinthians, it is written: If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
By God's grace, I will not be that noisy gong or the clanging symbol. My profession of love, with God's help becomes love's action in the world. It is not enough to talk about love, we must become love's disciples. The action of love must become our discipline, our battle cry, and our mission. When we learn to cling to love's way instead of our own way, love can flow through us and into the world, filling buckets everywhere. It is the action of love that bears fruit in our lives and multiplies even more love in the world.
Because God made us, and God is love, we can conclude that we are made of nothing but love. It is love that lines every cell in our body. It is love that runs through our veins. It is love that is woven into our tissue, and it is love that makes our breath. It is love that put the color in our eyes and the words upon our tongue. It is love that causes the mind to direct the limb and love that grew flesh on bone. We are living, breathing expressions of love. And our prayer should be to express the love that we are made of to the rest of the world. When we hold a grudge, our bodies respond to that, and illness can set in because our bodies reject what isn't love. When we hold onto un-loving thoughts, our bodies respond to their poison, and cancer can set in as a result. When we love our resentments, our bodies cry out in all kinds of ways, alarming us to empty our buckets of fear, anger, and judgment, so that we can fill them with love instead. When the mind holds onto the heavy thoughts of neglect, the body reacts echoing that neglect through things like weight gain.
Love is the real power in our life. Everything else deceives us and convinces us that we are powerful, but it is a false power that only weakens instead of uplifts. It is love that filled Mary's mind with God's plan, and love that fed the thousands on a hillside, and love that anointed Jesus with the finest perfume. It is love that touched Lazarus in the dark and unloosened the strips of cloth that kept him bound. The blind man washed himself in the waters of love and opened his eyes and saw everything beautiful. Love is all-powerful. Anything born of fear keeps us slaves of fear. We are never free of anything until we feel loved and help others feel loved.
I am keeping Nathan's picture where I can see it everyday. It is my mission to sense the empty bucket that everyone holds out, and fill it to overflowing. Not only must I learn to sense the empty bucket, I also need to pray to remember to see my name on another's empty bucket. It is my heart that is joined with all hearts and when I fill another's bucket, I am filling my own. Love is multiplied, expanded and grown one bucket at a time.
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