Low Battery Warning Again?

If you have a cell phone, you have probably experienced that moment when you needed to make a call, but as you reach for your phone you see that it is totally dead. I am always forgetting to charge my phone, or realize it needs to be charged when I am far from a charging source. Maybe I’ll plug it in for a few minutes before I rush out the door, and all day it gives me that “low power” message.

It occurs to me that this is a great metaphor for how our spirits get low when we forget to give them enough time to recharge. This season

I was feeling like my I was in “low power mode” and realized that our emotional and spiritual selves are kind of like a cell phone battery; we often forget to change them until they are giving us low battery warnings. And sometimes when we do stop to recharge, we don’t leave ourselves enough time, so we never get really filled-up- we never have quite enough power for what we want to do.

I was complaining one day that my phone was out of juice again, and my friend asked “why don’t you plug it in every night before bed?” I agree- that’s probably a good idea both for our phones and for our spirits. We could, as my friend suggests, have a time every day when we reconnect to our source, and feed our spirits. And like with our phones, it takes as long as it takes. We can fight against this- because we are busy and have so many cares and concerns, with our spirits as with our phones, but when our spirits are low they must be renewed.

As with our phones, even a daily habit may not be enough if we are using them hard. “Half an hour's meditation is essential except when you are very busy. Then a full hour is needed” writes Saint Francis de Sales. If you are going through a crisis, or a challenging transition, even a daily practice may not be enough- you may need a day or even a whole week devoted exclusively to recharging- to connecting with something larger than ourselves

Only you know what restores your soul; perhaps it is prayer or meditation, or perhaps it is a hike in the woods. It may be a morning spent weeding your garden, or time with your watercolors or a block of clay. It might be time spent in worship, or time with your children or grandchildren. Only you will know how much time you need and what it is that restores you to yourself.

The more you pay attention, the more you practice, the easier it will be to tell when you are in “low power mode” and when your spirit is fully recharged. A day faced with a fully charged phone and a fully charged spirit is one where all our gifts and talents are available to enjoy life and to be of service.