Is There Value In Emptiness?

Is there value in emptiness. That sinking feeling that kind of starts in the stomach and moves up through the chest into the throat and in the eyes and sometimes leads to tears. Today I had a fairly good day at the office. I had some boxes and bags of clothes that belonged to my father who passed away in February of 2022. The exterior of the boxes were marked dishes. As I was opening the boxes, I thought you live your whole life and then the things that you valued end up in boxes in storage units and that's it. I just kept unpacking, and my brother was there, and he had gone through several bags of things that had also been in storage for a few years. Both of us was going through the motions of sorting and clearing through things my brother wanted to keep, give away, or donate.

Later we did our usual talking on the way home. I dropped him off and felt gratitude for our banter on current events. When I arrived home, I got off to myself and had dinner then this feeling of deep emptiness just permeated me, and I thought God is there a purpose for emptiness? Is there value in feeling hollow? Immediately the thought came just sit in it. Sit in the emptiness. Don’t fill it with an activity. Don’t look at social media. Don’t look at the television just sit in it and allow it to move through you as you start to reach for better feeling thoughts. Allow the emptiness to just guide you to a better feeling thought. I realized in the moment that emptiness is not sadness. Emptiness just is. It is a space inside of a space and in that space of being hollow I can start to recognize and accept that it's OK to feel absolutely nothing. It's OK to feel the heaviness in my chest to feel tears welling up in my eyes it's OK because this too shall pass but, in the meantime, I'll sit in it and just as it consumed me allow it to dissolve it's OK all is well.

BEWARE OF DISTRACTIONS

 

A few weeks ago I started a YouTube channel called Serendipity Shena. You might think what a strange name. So what does the word serendipity mean? "Serendipity in American English is  (1). an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident, (2). good fortune; luck".  I believe life is full of opportunities whereby we unintentionally find valuable discoveries by chance. I wanted to create a space for me to share two things I love talking about politics and religion. I know these two topics alone have destroyed countries, marriages, friendships, and the list is endless. However, I enjoy taking political and biblical information and applying it to everyday life. The first video for the channel was approximately two weeks after the recent inauguration of the United States president. The word that permeated my mind within the initial days post-inauguration was distraction. People that I had conversations with were becoming fearful. frustrated, and hopeless in a short period. I wanted to share my thoughts and created a video. 

The inserted video is totally my opinion. Peace and Richest Blessings.

MAGICAL EXPERIENCE

 Living in Southeast Louisiana our world revolves around weather events. We have become experts at living with hurricanes and flash floods. Our winters consist of at most ten days with morning temperatures in the mid-forties. So, imagine the shock when meteorologists forecasted four inches of snow on January 21, 2025. The snowstorm brought ten inches of snow to New Orleans, tying the record set in 1895. The snowstorm also brought near-blizzard conditions to the city.

The New Year 2025 came in with a terrorist attack and many beautiful souls lost their lives and suffered horrible injuries on historic Bourbon Street. The city of New Orleans was numb. Even thinking about it now is earth-shattering. So, the shock of receiving a large amount of snow last month could only be described as magical. It felt so light and airy easing the heavy solemn mood that had eviscerated the city commonly referred to as the Big Easy. We had no experience with driving or walking in the snow. It didn't matter and we didn't care we just enjoyed the magical white stuff that was falling from the sky, The experience was magical.

ROTTING IS A GOOD THING

The older I get, the more I start to take inventory of my life and wonder what would be different. What would I have done differently? Where would I have lived? Which places would I have visited? What things have I achieved in life? What have been my biggest successes? What are my failures? As I approach another birthday, I'm thinking about how I can move beyond my limitations. How can I get unstuck? How can I become less comfortable with not planning, not doing, or being? How can I intentionally and on purpose create a meaningful and joyous life? How can I soar above the clouds without turbulence? Why is it so difficult for me to do something as simple as socializing and enjoying the moment? Am I stuck? After living deep in the crevasses of grief and family illnesses for the past four years I feel afraid to plan. I feel like I’m holding my breath and if I exhale some undesirable situation will manifest. I feel like my life is engulfed in problem-solving. And then there’s the business of managing a company and the issues associated with being a CEO. I started living in a space where I felt like the man in the old Duncan Donuts commercial whose life became a revolving door forcing him to say, “I already made the donuts.”  I just had to retreat to doing as much of nothing as possible. I watched series on streaming TV, watched podcasters, and more political programming than was probably healthy. I ate more takeout food than I ever had allowed myself to consume previously. My place of refuge was my home office on the futon.

I actively engaged in what Generation Z calls “rotting”. My intense work ethic would not allow me to engage in bed rotting so I resorted to futon rotting. During my rotting season, I’ve released 35 pounds, become reconnected to my love of fashion, recommitted to decorating my home, and daily exercise routines, reactivated my blog posts, started two YouTube channels, and left a church congregation that no longer met my spiritual needs. In my mind, I felt so incredibly stuck but there has been tremendous movement. My movement was difficult to see because of grief and the duties involved in trying to help someone regain their health. However, the movement and progress that was occurring in my life cannot be denied. All the endless tears were healing. I can get through days without tears or waves of sadness. I’m better because in doing nothing my periods of doing something were more productive. I am still in a place of incredible transition and will continue to engage in movement through futon rotting.

Peace and Richest Blessings.

Are You the Answer to Someone’s Prayer?

 Are You the Answer to Someone's Prayer

Where Have You Been?

 

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Oh, wow my last blogpost was in April 2016. It was a video that I did in the conference room of my old office space. It was a day without makeup, but a lot of thoughts. I was consumed with how great people functioned in the midst of being very afraid and was inspired to do a video. My life has changed so drastically since 2016. Little did I know April 2016 was the last month of my life being settled and mundane. My greatest worries were college tuition for my son and ensuring my company had funds monthly to remain self-sustaining. May 2016 ushered in a tsunami of challenges that still seem to overtake me. I have been walking with wobbly water legs since. Some days I just feel I cannot go on. There are no real respites. I just stop and decide to be grateful, smile, laugh, and encourage others at sporadic intervals throughout a given day. I always make a point of telling others that as I encourage you, I encourage myself.

The people that receive services through the non-profit I have been blessed to steward are my sheroes, heroes and props. They make me laugh and their desire to change their lives gives me strength to catch my breath to be there for them. We truly are helping each other. In the swirl of politics, a pandemic, and mounting societal issues everyone has been living with water legs. So, I was well equipped for the challenges placed upon the world in 2020. Thankfully, today I feel more hopeful than I have been in the past four years. There is no specific event and there is no financial windfall it is just an inner knowing from Holy Spirit that “the storm is passing over.”

The subject Where Have You Been? connotes a sense of missing in action or lost. However, it is in the sense of being lost that I have come to realize that I was actually collecting unfinished fragments of myself that allowed me to truly relate to people that live with insurmountable challenges. I accepted the assignment to help people experience a life of accepting the person God created them to be. Not realizing that to be fully engaged in the assignment required what felt like a total collapse of my life as I knew it. I said to a few people I do not even recognize my life. Where did it go? What happened to it?

Today I know that nothing happened to me or my life. I needed to grow and things that seemed like challenges were designed to strengthen my spirit to be of greater service. Nothing has been withheld or held back. I believe that God is a master mixologist with capacity to take hard chunky pieces and make them like silk. The blending process is loud, resistant, and sometimes parts of us gets stuck on the walls of life in the process. Then God comes and moves the stuck pieces back into the blended parts. The outcome is delicious, tasteful, and aesthetically appealing. Additionally, the completed blend does not display evidence or proof that at one time the ingredients were detached and foreign to each other.

Therefore, the question is not Where Have You Been? but Where Are You Going?

NEVER ALONE

Each of us have heard someone proclaim "I'm alone, but not lonely." Being able to separate the two is typically a good sign that an individual has a sense of appreciation for their alone time. In other instances an individual has no desire to be alone, they crave and desire consistent interactions with others or a specific person. It is in this seemingly unfilled desire that loneliness and often depression creeps in. Sometimes feelings of loneliness and depression become all consuming literally sucking the life out of a person. There are numerous reasons that serve as an impetus for alienation. Issues related to health, an inability to lose weight despite valiant efforts, loss of income, betrayal, divorce and abandonment are perfect catalysts to feel that God is not concerned about you or your needs, wants, and desires.When life hits below the belt there is an instinctive need to grab the belly and double over in pain while falling to the floor.

Two days ago I was listening to a question and answer podcast and the person asking the question had so much despair and wanted to literally cave in and quit. The despair was so palpable and real. I could relate so much to the caller because I too was in the same situation and have yet to find a permanent solution to this problem. After the person expressed their problem the host blurted out Zephaniah 3:17 "The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." Tears just streamed down my face as I felt the love, care, and warmth of God spewing forth from those verses of scripture. I was shocked by the response of the host and yet it was exactly what I needed to hear. I don't know about you, but sometimes I live in my head and the voices of my problems speak louder than the voice of God. I am in the process of going back to the beginning and tuning my ear to the One who gave me life. 

For the past twenty-two years I've felt as if my foot has been constantly on the accelerator and I need to just pump the brakes. I need to literally measure my thoughts against the validity of God's word and discontinue living inside my head. At this moment I know God is with me, He will rescue and protect me, He expresses joy and gladness over me, His love is available to quiet my racing mind, and He loves me so much He sings over me.

Friends you are Never Alone. The Creator of the Universe holds you in high esteem and is there with you every moment of your life. "The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."