Space Versus Privacy

When you pray, you open yourself to the influence of the Power which has revealed itself as Love.  The Power gives you freedom and independence.  Once touched by this Power, you are no longer swayed back and forth by the countless opinions, ideas and feelings which flow through you.  You have found a center for your life that gives you a creative distance so that everything you see, hear and feel can be tested against the source.  Christ is the man who in the most revealing way made clear that prayer means sharing in the power of God.  It enabled him to turn his world around, it gave him the attraction to draw countless men out of the chains of their existence, but it also stirred up aggression which brought him to his death.  Christ, who is called the Son of Man and the Son of God, has shown what it means to pray.  In him, God himself became visible for the fall and rise of many.  (Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands)

One of my favorite images for solitude is sitting in a wide open place.  I grew up near to a canyon and always loved to be near that wide open place.  Vacationing in the Northwest was beautiful, but I would find it hard to be so enclosed in trees since I am so used to the open.  My drive to work goes by a large caldera, an open meadow in the midst of mountain peaks.  I also have enjoyed the desert for its loneliness and openness.

In some of my prayer times, I settle down into an open inner space where I can hear God and leave distractions behind.  When Nouwen talks about a creative space, this is what comes to mind.  Solitude and silence are typical ways in which God can meet people.  I see them as space and openness.  Distractions and temptations crowd me, but God doesn't.  It seems to be in his nature to work in these spaces.

It takes space to make a person.  The space is not mere privacy, separation for other people so I can do what I want to, when I want to.  Privacy makes emptiness.  Most of the things I do in privacy are soul-destroying.  Instead of privacy, I need space, open and inviting.  I need to make room in my life to really be with people.  This takes time alone, but not privacy.

More importantly, such space invites God to speak and teaches me to hear him.  Privacy shuts God out with the clamor of my desires, distractions, and worries.  I need prayer that is open to God's influence, open to his touch.  Such prayer occurs where I make space for God.  It is interesting to me how quickly a "quiet time" can become a private thing in the worst sense instead of a creative distance where I can hear and be heard.  I stand apart and alone so I can learn to draw near without pretending, pushing, or presuming.

Some of the most acetic people in history, the Desert Fathers, understood the concept of space versus privacy.

A brother came to see a certain hermit and, as he was leaving, he said,"Forgive me, Abba, for preventing you from keeping your rule." The hermit replied, "My rule is to welcome you with hospitality and to send you away in peace." (Desert Fathers)

 Creating space does not make friends necessarily.  Not everyone will be happy with such an effort.  Space does create compassion, however.  It is a city on a hill.  It is what makes followers of Jesus into "stars in the universe."  I think that 5 minutes with someone who has real openness in their life is worth many hours with someone who has a crowded, driven life.  The sacrifice is worth it.

Creating space begins with understanding that God has space for me.  "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love."  (Psalm 103:8)  "Love is patient."  (1 Corinthians 13:4) When I begin to live in that space, that patient love, I begin to allow such space for other people as well.  I find room for myself when walk into the wide open space of God's love and power.  I find room for myself when I do not crowd other people.  How often do I draw near to other people to pretend I am something I am not, push them into what I think is best for them, or presume that they should see me a certain way?

Lord, I need space.  Deliver me from my tendency to try find space by taking it from other people.  Instead let me find the openness of your arms and the quiet of your gaze.  Let me live under your eye and in your heart, open to what you have for me today.  Amen.

Good for What?

Goodness is not defined by action.  Actions can only be good if the intention is good.  For example, One man gets a second job to earn money so that he can send his child to school.  Another man gets a second job to earn money so he can support a drug habit.  Both men have the same actions, but their intentions are different making one man's actions good and the other man's actions evil.

Goodness can only be declared and administered by God.  Only he is able and fit to take such a position.  No other governor of moral law is possible, whether by rule or consensus, since people always lack perfect knowledge and differ in their views and feelings.

Goodness does not exist because God wills it or because God created it or because God performs it.  Goodness exists because it is what God is.  He cannot rule by any other means; he cannot create in any other way; he cannot act with any other intention.

So the very basis of goodness in human life is the goodness that God is.  This alone is the only ultimate intention that makes "good" actions good.  As defined above, it is intention that makes an act moral or good, not the action itself.

Jesus described the only real good intentions this way: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Love your neighbor as yourself."  The love of God, the affirmation of his intrinsic and essential goodness, will alone guide and correct all other actions and areas of human life.  Without this inner admission of God's goodness, good cannot be done, because goodness is always defined by intention.

Similarly, the love of our neighbors affirms the essential goodness of God since they are made for his love and his benevolence.  Denying love to our neighbors denies the that intentions of God for good in this world, since that is what the creation is made for: people.  People (as well as all creation) have value and goodness because they are made by and for a good God.

In this age, the more typical command is: "Love yourself with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Love God and your neighbor when it serves your self-interest."  So rather than goodness being the foundation of action, personal desire becomes the foundation.  The fundamental question switches from "What is good?" to "What is good for me?" or "What's in it for me?"

For example, one person goes to church, volunteers at a soup kitchen, and teaches their children to do what is right so that they will not be punished, but will be rewarded by God, or so that other people will see their goodness.  Another goes to church, volunteers at a soup kitchen, and teaches their children to do right because they love God and their neighbor as themselves.  One is a hypocrite, the other is devoted.  The ultimate intention is what makes the action good.

A popular notion is that a person can just love their neighbor and not love God.  The question would be, "On what basis can a person love their neighbor as themselves except with God as the source of goodness?"  Invariably, such love picks out which people deserve love and which people can be overlooked.  It must take from one group and give to the other.  This is because without God as the foundation and administrator of goodness, personal preference and desire rule.

In the end, the question becomes not "What is good?" or "Who is good?", but "What is a person good for?"  Is it for God's sake, so his goodness and light might be known and acknowledged?  Or is it for the more typical reason: self-interest?

As Jesus said, "Many will come to me that day and say, 'Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons and perform many miracles?'  But I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you.  Away from me you evildoers!'."  (Mt. 7)  This loving God with all that we are is more than just knowing about him, it is a person-to-person, conversational relationship that underlies the good intentions we are to have.

Another person to describe this is Paul when he wrote, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."  (1 Cor. 13:1-3)  The love Paul is speaking of is the love that Jesus described: "Love God with all that you are and love your neighbor as yourself."  Without this foundation and intention, no actions are beneficial or good.

Goodness flows from the intention to serve God because he is good and kind and loving.  This is where most of my time is spent.  In an age where people spend their days denying and hiding from God's goodness and seeking their own desires, I must take special time and constantly remember to affirm and seek God's goodness and love.  From this "cleaning the inside of the cup, the outside becomes clean."  From this rooting and planting by streams of living water, fruit grows.  From this desire to imitate God, goodness flows.

Ironically, people have a internal story that says, "If I get what I want, then I'll be happy."  This, of course, is a lie, disproved many times by many lives.  Usually, we find if we always give people what they want they get "spoiled."  The true story goes, "Seek God's goodness and love and influence and happiness will be thrown in, too" or as Jesus says, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well."  (Mt. 6:33)

(My thanks to Charles Finney's Systematic Theology.  This blog entry is not intended to prove, but to provide reasons to have confidence in God and his goodness.  Also this entry is not intended to argue, but to clarify, most of all for myself.)

Lord, let me be good for you, or I will find that I have been good for nothing.  Amen.