It was minus 10 degrees this morning. As is our custom, we sat on the front porch with our insulated mugs of steaming Sleepy Monk coffee, all bundled up with multiple layers, fleece blankets, wool beanies and warm gloves.

No one would have blamed us if we had decided to stay inside where it was warm and toasty for our morning ritual of coffee, connection, and a little contemplative reading. It was below zero for crying out loud. But somehow, doing what it takes to preserve and protect that practice, come what may, is worth the effort. For now.

It’s not a rigid, letter-of-the-law rule by which we have to abide, but rather, a choice worth making. For now.

It’s a time together at the beginning of the day that sustains and better equips us for whatever life brings our way. For now.

There’s nothing sacred or magic about coffee on a porch. That is found in the showing up. In the readiness to listen. In the openness to receive. In the possibility of being connected to and changed by something way bigger than two elders who love each other and a good cup of coffee. It just happens to take place, for us, over coffee on a porch.

That’s the ritual that sustains us. For now.

That’s the practice that equips us. For now.

That’s the choice worth making. For now.

What might yours be? For now.

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of January. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.

REPLENISHED

To be replenished is to be refilled, to replace what has been used up, to be restored after having exhausted our inner resources. I know what replenished feels like, and as I discovered recently, what it does not.

One night not too long ago I found myself on the closet floor in tears, being spooned by Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle who refused to leave my side. I had hit the wall. It wasn’t a choice. I had used up all I had, and there simply wasn’t any more to give.

I spent the better part of the next day napping, and woke up the following morning no longer flattened against the wall. It would have been easy to just pick up life where I’d left off, thinking that I'd refilled my tank. That I was replenished.

I wasn’t.

Functional? Yes.

Replenished? No.

About that time my husband came down with the real-meal-deal flu, and was down for the long count. Basically sequestered for a week, it was no fun for him. He felt so lousy. For me however, those days under house arrest were a gift. His time to recover became mine to be replenished. To replace what had been used up.

Yesterday I wrote about being in rhythm with our lives. Being replenished is part of that rhythm. We are meant to give ourselves away, to go out into the world and return back home, to empty out and to fill back up. I know what my replenishment essentials are, and my guess is that you do too. It would be nice if we didn’t have to find ourselves on the closet floor in tears in order to remember what they are. Although being spooned by a chocolate labradoodle is pretty pretty great.