Buckets

I heard a story once about a school where each teacher was given a small bucket.  This bucket was to hang outside of their classroom door.  The hope and the good intention behind this idea was that the bucket would be filled by good-hearted co-workers.  Just drop in a little note of encouragement or bits of chocolate or simple little surprises that might keep spirits up and all those inner buckets filled.  (Imagine teachers with full inner buckets… no telling what might awaken in every classroom!!)

Sadly what actually happened was that the buckets hung empty.  Those who needed to have their own buckets filled discovered the additional task of filling a co-worker’s bucket virtually impossible.  Days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months, and as this time passed, some teachers quietly turned their buckets over because it was too hard to see the visual emptiness every single day.  I heard that the upside down buckets were righted over time, but only that… not filled, not made purposeful except for the measure of this observation.

I no longer have a standard classroom door.  I say standard because I believe every door opens to new learnings and new teachings.  But I do have a bucket, a big, red bucket.  I haul water in it to nourish plants.  I carry dirt in it from one location to the next.  When I ever get around to washing my car, I fill it with white soapy water that morphs into ugly grey sludge by the end of that event. But what I most love my red bucket for is carrying wildflowers.  It’s a perk that comes from living in the country.  It’s a prize that is offered for getting one’s butt in gear and taking those healthy walks that so easily get put off!  Walk with a bucket and a small pair of shears, and the return trip home becomes a filling!  Purple clover, daisies, honeysuckle, wild roses, and often flowers that I cannot name come along for the joy of riding in the red bucket!

Today as I filled my bucket, I thought of so many people, like my teaching friends, who need tending.  And so, for what it’s worth, I’d snip a wildflower and I’d say their names.  I’d bend down low and rise with flower in hand to look toward sky with prayers of thanksgiving.  I smelled the honeysuckle and imagined sweetness for all who struggle.  I filled my red bucket with colors of the most delicate palate and whispered those colors to the passing breeze that they might be carried on and glide into the open windows where school children learn.  I don’t know how loving thoughts change the world, how God moves, how goodness grows, but I do know that buckets were made to be filled.

If your bucket is empty today, perhaps that is just how it is.  And perhaps you need to find your own special way of filling that bucket.  Perhaps you need not wait on another to do so.  But in the meantime, while you are pondering what might fill you with gladness as you fill that bucket, I encourage you to look at all that you don’t see inside of the emptiness.  Is there emptiness there, is there nothing or is there something… something yet discovered, something yet born?  Could it be that what you don’t see is as important as what could be seen?  Is there the remotest possibility that what your empty bucket actually holds is an opening for love, for prayer, for grace?  Good buckets are wide open… and that’s the greatest gift, wouldn’t you say?