Vessels
Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 8:40 AM 
Vessels. Mother as vessel. Woman as vessel. Broken. Cracked. Whole. Sacred vessel. Holy vessel. Pregnant with hope and life.
A vessel for the season of Lent. If the vessel is closed, I cannot be fed. If it is poured to overfilling, it may crack. Today my vessel feels empty. No, it has been emptied for Lent with wonder and expectation, but the filling of Ash Wednesday was painful and venomous. I would rather be empty than filled with this poison. I do not enjoy this process of filling and emptying. Especially when my choice feels limited. When a fire hydrant opens and pours into your tiny jar, how can it not be tossed around, cracked or broken?
The choice becomes how to be in the brokenness. How to become a vessel that is open to let in the feelings that need to be felt, but to narrow the opening and not let poison fill me to the top. How do I learn to receive the pain that is mine to receive and not carry the guilt for that which I have no control over?
This season of lent feels so much about tending to my vessel. Being gentle with the cracks while not ignoring them. Mending the breaks that I can. Seeing myself as whole. A sacred vessel. Pregnant with hope and life…some days a little more than others ☺.
How are you called to tend the cracks of life? Have you ever considered yourself as vessel? What will help you stay open to God rather than closing off and obstructing your own pathway?
collage by lucy
Reader Comments (9)
There is a song by Leonard Cohen called Anthem and in it are these wonderful lines:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
So don't be too diligent in mending those cracks. It is all in how you look at them. There is nothing duller or less beautiful than absolute perfection.
I just clicked the comments link to leave exactly these lines from Cohen.
I think perhaps it's about acknowledging the poison without trying to "narrow the opening". Sometimes a narrow opening can prevent something escaping as well as entering.
I sense a synergy here. I got chills already. ;)
Wonderful post, Lucy. I am so about this visualization lately. As far as mending the cracks, I pray and meditate and trust and God seems to snap into action and super glue me back together. There are some areas where I turn my will over to Him and then take it back. Ah, if only I could trust - completely - 100 percent of the time. It is also very difficult to drop the rocks of guilt and shame ... but He wants us to, I believe that. You are such a wonderfully spiritual woman, my friend!
thank you ladies for these wonderful synergistic comments. i had to go back and read my words to see if i really said "mending" and guess what...the word was "tend"... how are you called to "tend the cracks" of life. it is through those cracks that much has seeped in and out :-)
i agree that absolute perfection is quite dull...in fact, does it even exist?
bon soir, mon amies!
A thoughtful, honest post with which I can identify -- I tend to keep the lid on -- and wise comments.
Thank you, all.
Lucy, you inspired me to write about the beauty of imperfection from the Japanese aesthetic perspective in my blog.
hi elaine--glad you took the "lid" off here to stop and say hello!
barbara's reflection on beauty of imperfection is well worth stopping by to read if you haven't done so already!!
Wow, Lucy, that caused me to choke up. I so can feel the emotion; and perhaps I feel that right now in my life, I'm sharing in what you wrote about. Thank you for being so open! :)x