Replenish

"Life is always unfinished business" 

Richard Gilbert

In the midst of the whirling day, In the hectic rush to be doing, In the frantic pace of life, Pause here for a moment.

Catch your breath; Relax your body;

 Loosen your grip on life.

Consider that our lives are always unfinished business;

 Imagine that the picture of our being is never complete;

Allow your life to be a work in progress.

Do not hurry to mold the masterpiece;

Do not rush to finish the picture;

Do not be impatient to complete the drawing.

From beckoning birth to dawning death we are in process,

And always there is more to be done.

Do not let the incompleteness weigh on your spirit-

Do not despair that imperfection marks your every day;

Do not fear that we are still in the making.

Let us instead be grateful that the world is still to be created;

Let us give thanks that we can be more than we are;

Let us celebrate the power of the incomplete;

For life is always unfinished business.

  

Ah, this touched me.  It replenished me.  I've been thinking about that word, dear reader.  Replenish.  I'm kind of a word nerd and love looking up etymology of words and pondering the origin so that my understanding of the meaning changes.  Its really beautiful and fun to me.  

Replenish, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, means to "fill something up again," or "to restore."  Its origins include "supply abundantly" and "expressing intensive force" with nods to "fill" and "full".  

I've been replenished lately.  I had some gunk in me for a while; untruth that I had held on to, unrealistic and unkind attitudes, mistakes and missed opportunities that I clung to and refused to surrender.  In this bitter and withdrawing attitude, dear ones reached out in love and concern.  And I yielded to their outreach, though there was a strong pull to isolate myself.  As that gunk was pulled out, let out, gushed out, I found myself empty and able to be still rather than upset.  And then started the replenishing.  I'm not sure I'm quite empty of gunk yet, but I know that replenishment is real and that it happens and that it is healing.  

Love.  Love replenishes.  How I need to be reminded of that and to let it in to my life.  

This Morning's Gift

Wintertime walking is a real treat, dear reader.  If you're like me, opening the door to the outside brings a bracing drop in temperature, one that causes you to gulp cold air into your lungs and wake up.  Following that beginning, there is so much to enjoy.  Visible breath; brisk and invigorating freshness; water stopped in its normal downward path in splendid icicles; snow, sometimes with snowflakes that you can see the shape of; muffled sounds when snow is newly falling and crunchy steps once the snow has melted and refrozen; sometimes foggy low hanging clouds that leave the next 40 feet a mystery; delicate frost that graces every surface in sight.  (Just so we're clear, I took the following picture in hopes of capturing it, but didn't really succeed.  The other photos are from those who are more skilled than I.)

The picture really doesn't do it justice.  

Today as I walked, I thought about the frost that I saw.  It was thicker than normal, but not in an overbearing way.  I tried to think of the right word to describe how the frost had settled on the grass and tree branches, giving them a beautiful white, almost shining, outline.  

Glazed?  Nope.  

Frosted.   Mmmm, close, but not quite.  

Dusted?  Naw.  

Um...encased?  No.  That sounds almost morbid.  

Encrusted, then.  Nope, not quite.  

Engraced.  Yes, that is it.  

So I marveled as I passed so many ordinary trees, engraced with frost to make a truly beautiful sight. 

Engraced is a made up word, dear reader.  Its what my brain suggested when I was running out of descriptions for the winter phenomenon.  Graced would probably suffice, and in looking it up, the dictionary shares that grace has connections with pleasing and grateful.  The word, in its noun and verb form, contains beautiful meaning, such as "simple elegance or refinement," "to do honor or credit to," and "adorn".   

And maybe its because Valentine's Day is coming up, but I thought about how love makes the most ordinary things splendid.  That may sound tacky, but I believe that it is true.  A life graced with love is a really beautiful one.