Welcome to White Pitchers, a place I hope you can bring your pitcher and fill it up with creativity, poetry, design and following Jesus.
And now some thoughts on soul keeping.

Come on in.

I am taking my first Write for 31 days challenge. Thanks for showing up to soak up some peace and quiet, some white space for your soul. I’m glad you’re here. Put your feet up, take a big deep breath and stay a while.

When I read over the instructions, Crystal Stine said,

“When in doubt, white space is your friend.”

That is just where I have been camping out and what I wanted to talk to you about during this month of everyday writing,

white space for soul keeping

Here is Day 1.

w h i t e
s p a c e

I yearn for it. I search for it. I need it around my soul.

But what is white space?

White space is unmarked space. It is the space between letters in typeface. It’s the margins that let your eye rest on a page. It’s breathable room in design, on a book page or a bookshelf, around art and in your life.

Ooohh, that sounds like just what I need!

White space is also called negative space which I have always thought was an unfortunate label for it is the space created by two objects near one another. That sounds good to me. When I was in Architecture School, we were taught to consider that space created between two buildings or a house and it’s garage as
p o s s i b i l i t y.

White space isn’t just left over space, but space all it’s own with potential and life.

Here is the space between my house and the neighbor's fence. My favorite lilac sits in the corner. We call it the Courtyard and it leads to our back yard. Only 16 feet wide, it holds many of my favorite garden things like worn brick paths, round boxwoods, rusty stuff and best of all it hides an old wooden bench by the bubbling fountain, a little spot to sit and read.

Here is the space between our house and the neighbors fence on the other side. We call it the Patio. It is only 21 feet wide and so much happens here that I can see from my kitchen sink, birds touch down at the birdbath, I cut hydrangeas for the kitchen counter, burgers come piping hot off the grill and we have summertime dinners al fresco. All day long, squirrels run the squirrel highway, the top of the fence around my yard.

I am glad we carved these spaces out and gave them some love.

This is the kind of tending I want to give to white space in my life. First of all I just want to have some.

We live in a busy, frantic, striving world coming toward us at warp speed. It’s full of ideas, demands, information, chatter and possibilities. And we are moving at mach 10 with our hair on fire. The two together are a burning fireball.

Do you feel it?

We work, we clean, we get stuff done, check 100 things off of our to-do list, drive a million miles every day, take meetings, check email, cook dinner, follow feeds, repair stuff and hopefully love our families as we go.

But what are we missing in the blur?

What if we don’t want to love on the run?

How do we slow it all down, de-clutter our minds, find rest and peace?

How do we connect with our souls?

White space is the opposite of busy or cluttered. It is pristine terrain. It is wide open sky. I crave it deep in my bones, in my timeless soul. White space is quiet. It’s calm, slowing down and breathing deeply.

Here’s the best definition I’ve found.

"subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful"

Now we are getting somewhere, somewhere I want to go, somewhere good and solid. We may have loads of information at our fingertips in our technological world, but do we have wisdom and truth and meaning?

Here’s the thing, the world is LOUD and I want to hear G O D. From what I can tell, He is more likely to be in the whisper than the whirlwind, in the small than the big, in the plain than the glittery, in the barn than in the big house on the hill.

Jesus is the Savior of the World and he sought out white space. So surely I need some.

Here’s another thing, I think we can find white space without going away, though that might be what we do sometimes. I am seeking it out right where I am, in my house, in my schedule, with my family and in my current life.

Please don’t think I have this all worked out. I am exploring. I am re-arranging. I am following a nudge, maybe even a heavenly shove. I’ll tell you about that heavenly shove sometime in the next 31 days.

I have decided to write about the very thing I may not be good at, but which which would be good for me. I hope to discover white space in places that surprise me. If you think you might like to join me, I’d LOVE that. I’ll will likely learn from you.

This is Day 1.

Come back tomorrow with a cup of coffee or tea and sit a while.

I'll meet you here.

Terri

Watch for each day to fill as we go.

Day 2: white space is silence

Day 3: white space slows down

Day 4: white space invites

Day 5: white space sits still

Day 6: white space subtracts

Day 7: white space adds meaning

Day 8: white space coaxes out creativity