A Last Word For Awhile

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most.   We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Nelson Mandela said this in his 1994 Inaugural Address.  I’d like to use this as my last posting on intimacy, and my last posting for awhile.  As Mandela’s release from prison marked a great turning in South Africa, Churches that use the seasonal series of Scripture readings in their services called the Lectionary  approach a great turning, too. 

We turn from the dark prison of death and last things into the light of new life.  As from Plato’s cave we turn from shadows that we mistake for reality, and are given four weeks of Advent to adjust our eyes to the brightness of the world of life and love.  Plato’s description of Socrates’ cave  is an allegory for life.  We choose, he proposes, to accept shadows as reality, to settle for what we know.  It is as if we are in a deep cave, and the nature in the bright world casts shadows on the back wall of our cave.  We face that back wall and give meaning to the shadows, give meaning to our lives based on the shadows (why does television come to mind?) and never turn around to see the reality, the bright, living reality that is the source of those shadows.

We are about to take the great turning from isolation to community, from individuality to companionship, from identity to intimacy.  And the hero of the story is not some testosterone-pumped superhero, but a teenaged Palestinian girl who said yes.  The Scriptures for these past Sundays have been dealing with considerations of death and afterlife.  Jesus keeps telling people that they’re looking in the wrong direction.  Next Sunday we celebrate Christ the King, and we get one final shot at understanding that we have the wrong idea of king-dom, that it’s not about power and safety and reward.  It’s about relationship, and compassion, and empathy; it’s about love.

Intimacy is not merely reaching out to others, looking into their eyes, listening to their words, touching them.  Intimacy is also allowing ourselves to be touched, to be entered.  Last week I heard L.’s story for the third time in as many weeks. It hurt that much.  Her daughter had come to pick her up from the Homeless Shelter that had been her home for 90 days, to make room for her in her little house for awhile, in the hopes that she’d get back on her feet.  When L. introduced her daughter to E., a friend at the shelter, her daughter had shook E.’s hand, then unconsciously wiped her hand on her pants.  I’m reminded of a former student, a brilliant, generous, heroic student who would literally flinch when he was touched.

The great turning of the Scriptures is meant to rescue us from the cave, to take us up into the light.  But as soon as we turn around toward it, we are blinded, and we learn the first blessing and curse of the journey.  We need to have someone take our hand.  We need to trust them blind.  Intimacy can be as scary as it is promising.

I said that this would be my last posting for awhile.  I have come to sense the desire to share not my own words, but the sources from which, increasingly, I find them coming.  When I thought my life might end quickly, I felt the need to share from my heart, to leave everything I had where it could be available to those I love.  But now as my aneurism seems less critical or threatening, I find that my own reading and listening are enriching me, and that what I write is a second-hand version of those sources.  So I’ll work to revise the website to share with you links to sources to consider on your own, a greater opportunity to share with each other through your own insights and comments, and an occasional posting of mine as well.  Advent begins November 28.  Watch for a revised website by then.  In the meantime, enjoy the intimacy of talking amongst yourselves.