Empty is as empty does.

Empty is as empty does.

The lesser of two evils.

Close your eyes.

Pretend it is quiet.

Sit still for a few minutes.

What do you hear in the distance? Birds chirping, a moaning sound, the sound of a fan— sometimes used by some to fill the quiet as known as “white noise” Is there simply deafening silence. When you open your eyes, what do you see? An empty room in need of “things”. To fill it up. To enjoy, perhaps distract you?

When you are able to, when you come to, attempt to get up and walk around, take a visual tour of this empty space, are you all alone?

Is anyone side by side with you. Do you feel anyone, feel any being by your side?

Do you feel full. Or dull. Do you feel an emptiness overcome you when you look around. Does your heart begin to race. Or. Are you calm?

Do you feel the need to stop, project, drop and roll out of this empty room. In the desperate need to get out of this room, do you stagger to another only to find it is also empty? Is the door really always open? Or do you walk head first right into it like a brick wall.

And hurt yourself.

Again.

Shaking your head as if to come to. Are you overcome with dread. Or peace? How does it feel to feel the empty? Do you need some noise any kind of noise to distract you from your thoughts? Any commotion is better than no commotion? The need to immediately distract. As in NOW. To distract your mind from the emptiness?

Keep “busy”.

Keep in mind. Once the “busy” ends, the deafening silence may return to the empty space of the empty room tour.

What do you reach for when you try to fill your empty space? As you look around this empty place. You wonder, “Did I even bring a bag?” A suitcase of belongings? To fill you up? Dull the ache or numb the pain? To fill and feel full to feel to feel empty?

As you rise up and stagger around this empty place, you search for a part of you, anywhere that is you. That is worth salvage. Your mind wanders around this empty place and you begin to feel as if YOU are the bag, the baggage, the dumping ground. As your heart sinks, you weep and think how much more can I carry this load?

The motherload. Locked and loaded? The need for the peace to release overcomes your self and frantically the screaming in your head amplifies and is so loud, it is impossible to think straight? As you look around, the empty place, the deafening silence simply echoes around your mind.

Alone.

In a desperate attempt to stop the emptiness, to stop the madness of the moment, what weaponry might you reach for or cry out to to be heard. To be noticed. To be helped.

Water? Still? Sparkly? Cell Phone?Cell device? Powder? Pills? Beer? Hard Seltzer? Gummies? Brownies?A knife? A gun?

Life can change in an instant. At your own hands, at the hands of another. And you can change the lives of another in an instant. How will you do that? How will you be the one that does not hurt another.

Again.

Then. Suddenly, off in the distance, as you continue to scan the life that is in front of you, there is a sound. You recognize the sound. You have heard it before. And you recognize it as good.

It is a knock, a knocking sound. And that sound is,

Opportunity.

Opportunity to move away from the hurt, the lonely, the desperation. To answer the call. Of another. Answer the knocking. With your very best self. Not with any of the vices of choice used as weaponry. To change your life in an instant.

Yes. It is a process. This thing called “Life”. Yes. Life is experiential. How else does any one human experience their best and their worse self. And come to recognize what works and what does not work. Before the empty becomes your own worst enemy.

Stop. Drop. And roll out of the fire of your life. And choose.

Life. A life well lived. A full life. The power is in your own hands to fill up your empty. And make a difference in the life of another. A good difference.

Look in the mirror, admit and own faults. Like the empty space you are attempting to fill. Then re-group. Re-align. Make a difference.

Think of the tour as magical. The magical empty tour. Guarantee it will be messy. But it does not have to be bloody, gut wrenching, up-chucking, or debilitating.

By God’s grace. If the knock occurs in your world of empty, emptiness and you are given a day. Give it your all and give back. Your best self. In the best way you know how. It will make a difference. In the life of another. Even just one other. Even just one other being.

Do not go it alone. Be the person to walk side by side with another. Even if and when you or they may not understand. It will make a difference. A good difference. A meaningful difference. A positive difference.

No one really knows the best way to fight a fight worth fighting. Again. There is something to be said for messiness. Clean slates are a dime a dozen.

The hard work, the baggage carrying is oftentimes necessary until remarkably one day, you just drop it. And the feeling of weightlessness is overwhelmingly breath taking. All the stuff, gummies, brownies, knives in the world unnecessary to fill the emptiness.

Set backs are to be earned, learned and then burned into oblivion. There is not one person alive who has perfection perfected. When the empty feeling gets the best of you, reach out. The control is best left in God’s hands.

He knows whose door to knock on and when to knock. When that person is ready. Really ready. God is the ultimate task master, test giver and the ultimate evaluator.

He knows our hearts.

In an empty room. In a full room.