Toward the end of her life, St. Catherine of Siena gave a long speech to her family and friends. She made a fundamental point about love, which includes something about nothing.
"...People who wish to begin to serve God must rid their hearts of all that kind of love into which the senses enter, not only for people but for any kind of creature whatsoever, and that they must seek for God the Creator single-mindedly and wholeheartedly. The heart, she said, cannot be entirely given to God unless it is delivered from al affections and is simple and open and free from double-mindedness. She also said that from her childhood days her one aim had been to labour towards this end. She said, further, that she had realized that the soul cannot reach this perfect state, when it can give its heart to God completely, unless it prays; and she showed that prayer must necessarily be founded upon humility, and not derive from any belief in his own virtue on the part of the person praying, who on the contrary should always recognize that of himself he is nothing.
"She went on to say that she had always done al she could to practise prayer and to make it a continual habit, as she had realized that it strengthened and increased the other virtues, whereas without it they weakened and withered away...." *
Even the nothingness points to God, for by ourselves we are nothing. And we cannot be nothing, without God. Nor, can we be anything without God. We cannot be anything or nothing of ourselves.
Today, nothing is extra nothing. Pain predominates, and pain is something--but only something through and by God. Suffering is illuminated through, with and in God. It is a beautiful day, then, to recognize once more that only in this pain today, is nothing all the more aware of God in its own nothingness.
Slowly getting the fence posts primed, edited an hour or so, would like to read more of St. Catherine, to finish the biography, but the something of blessed pain anesthetizes nothing's mind, just enough, to make it drowsy. While dozing, nothing thought how lengthy is life, lived moment by moment. Very well!
The right shoulder (a bit much mulch shoveling) sharply reminds nothing that it is very much physically nothing on its own. Then, the weariness reminds nothing that it is very much mentally nothing on its own. And in struggling against the feelings that pain wrings from the imagination, nothing is reminded that it is very much emotionally nothing on its own. The gift of suffering Christ gave for love of us, reminds nothing that it is very much spiritually nothing on its own.
Nothing is, only by and in God.
[Thought the blooms of the Maltese Cross would focus foremost. Instead, lavender Our Lady's Pincushions are clear, with the red blossoms bleeding. If one could see the tiny flowerets of the Maltese Cross blooms, the shape of individual crosses make up en masse, the sum total red effect. Maybe that is like prayer, with the virtues being the flowerets? Each pincushion bloom, also, is composed of numerous pin-petals. Perhaps some virtues focus more clearly, our prayer. St. Catherine suggests humility.]
*(Bl. Raymond of Capua. Life of St. Catherine of Siena. 1960. London: Harvill Press, pp. 330-31.)
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