Generosity

Lately, I’ve been noticing how generous comfort is. I can find it in the simplest things, like in the small bouquet of wildflowers I cut from my garden and placed in a white milk jug, which now has a broken handle.I love the brokenness of the jug. It reminds me of change and transformation. We once used this jug every morning at the breakfast table, and now it holds these beautiful and delicate flowers.

It’s comforting to let things change. I watch a hawk soaring in the sky, and I think about my father, who has made the great passage into the mystery of death. It is so beyond what I can comprehend, but the milk jug, and its transformation, brings comfort to this loss and to his memory.

Comfort is like a faucet just waiting to be turned on. I let it pour out into my daily life. The metaphor of the faucet is also used by Teresa of Avila, a 16th century Carmelite nun, when she described God as a fountain of water flowing within us. My art teacher and friend, Leigh Hyams, also used this image to describe creativity like a faucet just waiting to be turned on.
How generous can you let comfort become in yourself and in your daily life? Can you turn on the faucet and let it flow?