When The Cup Is Empty

An empty cup isn’t very inviting. Is it what’s inside that makes it a cup? Is the cup defined by its contents? Matter of opinion, I suppose. For sure, the cup is designed to hold something: your penny collection, pencils, jelly beans, dirt with a petunia sticking out of it, milk for the cookies, fresh coffee. When I open the cupboard that holds my cups, all different colors and shapes and sizes, they all call out at the same time: Me! Me! Choose me today! I try not to play favorites. Do you think the shape and color of a cup represents its owner in some way? What would you say about the cup in the photo? Utilitarian. Functional. Rather neutral. Imagination? No, not much. On the boring side?

There is a point here somewhere. And I think it’s this: Some days I feel like a fine piece of priceless dinnerware fit for the royal table. Some days I feel like my old cowboy boot cup, or the tacky saguaro cup with a handle on the side. I have a friend who thinks his javalina cup is the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. All in the eye. But maybe we spend too much time polishing up the outside, being more concerned with what it looks like than what it does. That approach produces a fine cup collection, one suitable for display and public admiration. But something tells me that an empty cup wishes it had something on the inside. Feeling empty is not fun. When the hope that used to be there is gone, when there’s an empty place where love used to be, when joy has been drained to the last drop, that’s when filling is so important.

Lord, on behalf of all the empty cups who wait this day expectantly, prayerfully, even painfully, come and fill us with Sacred Spirit. Replace our emptiness with the healing and hopeful energy of your love. May the warmth of your love that fills us radiate to the world around us. May we be for others the Cup of Salvation. Rugged chalice or Fine China; it’s what’s inside that counts. Come, Lord! Inhabit our hearts, for they are empty without you.