Feeling empty? Rest in that hollow, holy space.

The lake across the street has become my teacher.

I walk around it every day, rain, sleet or shine. I say hello to the herons and try to find the bald eagle who only twice has revealed its majestic self to me. Every day the water, the turtles, the fish and the deer surprise me in new ways.

I loved my quiet meditative walks around that sparkling water until this week, when they drained the lake. Yep. Bone dry, or close to it.

What a mess. Dead fish everywhere and hundreds of broken beer bottles, liquor bottles and pop bottles. The last time they drained the lake, we found two balls covered in mud and couldn’t lift them. Turns out they were bowling balls.

Who throws a bowling ball into a lake, let alone two of them?

We found metal poles from stop signs, a pair of men’s underwear, even a gun. We called the police. They pronounced it a B.B. gun and threw it out.

Yesterday I found another odd item: a set of false teeth.

Instead of lamenting the lack of water or getting angry about all the people who have treated the lake like a landfill, I decided life was giving me a unique chance to love planet Earth. So with the help of my three grandkids, we have carried out more than four wheelbarrows filled with bottles, cans and random trash.

Saturday as I cleaned alone, I listened to author Michael Singer speak on emptiness. He said spirituality is the act of emptying so that all naturally falls in. Spirituality isn’t a struggle, like climbing a mountain to greater heights. No, our natural, spiritual state is to be empty, hollow, void. “Real spirituality is about emptiness,” he said. And once we are empty, we experience a fullness nothing else can give us.

So why do we treat our souls like a landfill? I wonder what’s in the lake of us: junk food, TV shows, hours on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, texting, shopping, fake news, real news, buckets lists and five year plans of how we want our lives to unfold.

Guilty as charged. I confess, I was slightly horrified last week when my cell phone reported that I had spent six hours one day on it.

SIX HOURS?!! Yikes. At least two of them were spent listening to Michael Singer teachings, but those other 4 hours? I want them back!

So that empty lake staring at me tells me it’s time to empty myself. To let go of the clutter and garbage, the old stories I tell myself, the resentments I rehash, the fears I’ve long outgrown, the time I waste online avoiding sitting in that seat of Self.

When we rest in that still, hollow space, then God or the Universe or the Source of All Being that is Love and Light and Perfect Joy can fill us up with something better.

That something we’ve been seeking all along.