Things have felt spiritually dry over here for some time now.  Perhaps it’s the sleeplessness, or my newborn who needed every ounce of my body and energy, or that long drawn-out cynicism I feel toward the church and wear, like an old, familiar sweater. 

The spiritual practices I usually reach for at these times to buoy me are suddenly unavailable.  I can’t remember the last time I meditated.  Moving my body in the midst of childbirth recovery was not only not permitted, but painful.  The kinds of conversation around faith and wholeness and beauty I was used to engaging with were disconnected, fragmented, overtaken by the new kind of creation in my arms.

And into this space, the Spirit broods once more, like the hovering mama bird she is.

In the creation narrative of the Christian tradition, God creates intentional space.  Spaces like light, then sky, waters, then land, before the teeming of life that is invited to inhabit them.  I learned recently that the root of the Hebrew word for water is a verb, qavar, meaning to gather, to expect, to hope.

It is the same word that is used in Exodus to describe the parting of the Red Sea.  Herein lies the invitation at the heart of the gathering waters.  Maybe dry ground appearing is what we needed all along.  Maybe where I’ve sensed my own spiritual deserts is in fact the place of hope.  A clearing.  A breath.  The first step of crossing over.

I was struck that God hovers over the vacant void, bringing order and creativity and beauty out of seeming emptiness, of chaos.

The space is necessary before the creating.

The crossing, dependent upon the dryness.

The separation, before birthing.

Maybe it is not only normal, but welcome to dwell in this estrangement for awhile.  To get curious about what kind of space may be cultivated from the depths of displacement.  To ask ourselves what wells may be springing forth from this patch of sun-scorched earth.

To witness the waters gathering at our feet.

A blessing for the dryness

Blessed are the untethered ones

When little by little, the dryness seeps in,

Settling, making a home inside a soul once intent on vibrancy

Blessed be the vacant, the barren, the arid space

Where flourishing once lingered, now languishes

Blessed are we, the wondering, the yearning

Searching for salvations of shade, and rest, and water

For companionship with Another, an oasis in this desert

May the burns we bear here from an unrelenting sun be

The birthmark of a garden, tended with hope

Despite the odds.