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.