Swirling Waters

When I look at this painting I reflect on both the surface and the depths.

1. On the surface it is interesting and beautiful because of the colourful lily pads. 

2. On the surface you observe the movement of the water due to the flow of the stream or the wind.

3. Below the surface is another world.  A world of 'debris' and of nourishment.  The plants at the top would not flourish without the food and soil below. 

4.  In the world below you find the 'heavy' things, the stones, waterlogged branches, shells.  These all have a beauty of their own magnified through the water's windowpane above.  But these can only be discerned when the water is calm.

Life is something like this.  I've been pondering my soul...well the concept of the soul or the true self and conclude that it is difficult sometimes to see below the surface of my life into my soul - into who I really am.

As we go through life we tend to mask our 'true self' or we hesitate to be whom we really long to be out of fear of what others will say and think. We lose track of our true self and start to wear "other people's faces."

Palmer Parker writes in Let Your Life Speak:  
"We arrive in this world with birthright gifts - then we spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting others disabuse us of them... of [our] original giftedness.  Then - if we are awake, aware, and able to admit our loss - we spend the second half trying to recover and reclaim the gift we once possessed." 

In a sense, the surface me masks what is within, below the surface. Like the water if it is disturbed or if there is too much vegetation cluttering the surface, busyness and material things disturb and clutter my life and my soul seems hidden.

Now, I realize that busyness and material things are simply part of life and we can not eliminate them so I think we need to manage them so there is time  & space to see beneath the surface and to attend to the soul.  This is important because what is on the surface reflects not only outer movement and personality [emotions and giftings] but also that place where my 'roots' find their nourishment. What is in the deep will provide a stability and rootedness when the surface world is confused, disturbed, or lost in the pressure-nets controlled by  others.

May we go deep and look to the health of our soul. May we be encouraged and seek out what gives life in the deep, what nourishes, stabilizes, and contributes to the beauty of who we really are - the leaves and flowers, the ripples or waves, and the surface life.

Dallas Willard, in Renovation of the Heart, writes:

"Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life.  When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom, including nature; and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream."

May you connect with your soul and may you be comfortable with who you find yourself to be.