WATER BOTTLE

WATER BOTTLE

The activity in this hotel room in Canton, Ohio, is not lending itself favorably to my morning routine. Yes, the candle is burning, reminding me to be thankful for safe travel to this destination. However, I am struggling to write. To my right is a paper cup of coffee – not the usual stainless steel one; slightly to the left is a plastic bottle of water, which I am drinking to make up for the huge deficit of yesterday. “Focus,” I think to myself, “and write.” The water bottle becomes my focal point. 

When does a bottle become more than a thin, clear, shaped piece of plastic that holds water? When I begin to look at it with interest and to take notice of its content and curves. The bottle is intricately designed to hold its contents. Half an hour of my morning is gone. The activity in the room continues, but I am unaware of it.

During that time, I subconsciously began to sketch the focal point, the water bottle, now less than half full. My focus intensified. It didn’t look like the perfectly cylindrically shaped bottle of thirty minutes ago. I began to see details not previously noticed. Would I put a hole in the paper as I drew and erased lines trying to create on paper what was in front of me?

On the drive to Canton, we stopped and visited overnight with an old friend and former coworker. He asked me a question that my favorite manicurist had posed a few weeks earlier. With a puzzled and inquisitive expression, she asked, “How do you come up with the stuff you write about? What goes on in that brain of yours?” When the old friend asked a similar question, I realized how inadequate my answers were. I should have said, “I don’t know.” After the therapy session with the water bottle, I believe I have a clearer response.

I subconsciously and certainly unintentionally have trained myself to look for a salient and teachable message in every encounter. Sometimes the message is received immediately, sometimes delayed, and probably most of the time not at all.

I studied the bottle, and I sketched. I was striving for a close representation of what I saw. Two hours after starting, I looked closely at the label and read the words, “RECYCLE ME; PLASTIC BOTTLE; INGREDIENTS: PURIFIED WATER.” I thought, “Does the design of the bottle really matter?”

The message of the morning was clear: my outward appearance is ultimately of little consequence. What matters is that I am available to be recycled repeatedly until I find my purpose or refine it, to be transparent with myself and others about it, and to seek clarification through a process of purification, whatever that may be. This, my friends, takes a lot of focus, sketching, and erasing.

Does this answer the question: how do I come up with the stuff I write?” I don’t know. I hope it does at least for today.

Proverbs 4:23

PONDER THIS THOUGHT—Presentation captures one’s attention, content holds it.