If you be wise,
you will make yourselves reservoirs
rather than channels of God’s love -
the difference being
the channel discharges all its water
almost as soon as it is received -
and a reservoir waits until it is full to the brim
and only gives away what is superfluous -
it gives away without loss to itself.
We have today many channels, but few reservoirs.
We want to give away before we have received,
more willing to speak than to listen.
Beloved, learn to minister from the overflow
and do not desire to be more generous than God…
behold how much has to be poured into us that we may venture to pour out,
giving of our plenitude, not of our poverty.
~ Bernhard of Clairvaux
I have been waiting for a specific moment in my life to share this poem with you, and today is that moment!
Six months ago I didn't know that I would be buying my first home and "putting down roots" in a mountain community. My choice was in part driven by an inquiry into the ways in which I desired to shift from my "channel nature" into a "reservoir nature"....although those weren't the words that I used at the time.
It was such a delight and affirmation when this poem recently crossed my path and I recognized that my new home is a few short miles from a significantly large reservoir!
Today I am in the interim space between closing on my home and moving into it. I reflect on the ways in which the process of buying a home have felt and feel like a slow and steady filling of my BEing.
In Gratitude for the now daily reminder of my reservoir nature, I ask,
"Beloved,
what is the shape of your overflow?"
video credits: me, March 2018