Monday, March 16, 2009

Can A Person Be A Place?


What do I want?

I stop reading this morning to attempt to answer this question. I truly believe the things I want are not a trying to get God’s approval or love. But what is it?
I want to be a person who people are drawn to. Oh, it’s not a popularity thing. I want to be a place; a place where others find themselves. A place that provides freedom to discover and enjoy who they are.
A couple of years ago my spiritual director gave me a piece called “Hollowing”. This was in response to my struggle of describing how I was feeling. I told her I felt empty; not in the sense of hopelessness, but something intentional. Here is a portion of that piece:

Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.

You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain.

I will hollow you with knives.
I will not do this to make you clean.
I will not do this to make you pure.
You are clean already.
You are pure already.

I will do this because the world needs the hollowness of you.
I will do this for the space that you will be.
I will do this because you must be large.

A passage.
People will find their way through you.
A bowl.
People will eat from you and their hunger will not weaken them unto death.
A cup.
To catch the sacred rain.

At the moment of reading this I knew that is what I wanted to be. I knew this had been written for me.

This morning I asked myself once more what I wanted and why. Why? For some reason I must make sure inside that I am not wanting this for my own fulfillment although I would be so pleased to be this.

This begs the next question….what if no one wants this? What if the thing that I believe is one of my own deepest desires; the desire for community, isn’t desired by another? What if this yearning is mine alone? Community just seems so important to me right now. This is not some kind of possessive dependence on another but a healthy interdependence. It could be what becomes our saving grace for the future.

So, do I have an answer to my own question? No, but faith says The Holy One has put this desire in me and I now walk in it.

1 comment:

amy said...

1) Hospitality offers a place of safety and rest, forgiveness and acceptance, love and joy. It is the shalom of God that mediates the space between two persons, standing face-to-face and eye-to-eye, with no agenda except sharing in each other's presense, a melding of human and divine.

2) The kingdom of God is a dispersed citizenry, a people without a homeland on earth. We are an alien people with no land in which to put our trust but the "land" which is Christ. He is the land flowing with milk and honey, both a literal person and a figurative place. As the body of Christ, the present human embodiment of God on earth, we bring the "place" of God, the riches of the abundant life, to our fellow citizens and to the people of other lands.