Space
The space between planets and suns resembles the space we need to create in our jam-packed days so that we can tune in to what God wants for our lives.
When I tell people who've known me a while that I'm studying to become a certified spiritual director, many of them are shocked. "But you're such a good communicator," runs a frequent comment. "Why would you give that up?"
That's when I have to explain that I'm not giving up writing and editing, but that God has been trying to claim my life for added service for about a decade now. It was only last year that I finally gave in and accepted this call to a new ministry.
People familiar with my journalistic persona may find it hard to think of me as a spiritual director. I get that. Spiritual directors are thought to be calm, quiet, otherwordly people, whereas I've spent nearly 40 years being a hard-driving, sharp-questioning reporter. People have called me challenging, confrontational, even pugnacious. I don't disown that part of me, because it has served me and the church well through the years. Someone has to ask the tough questions that make everyone squirm. Someone has to name the elephant in the room, or it will never be recognized and tamed.
As I've matured, however, I've less attached to head-on confrontations. Over the past two years of seminary study, I've learned that instead of backing people into a corner to deal with their issues, there's an equally effective -- perhaps even more effective -- method that God seems to like: creating space for the encounter between a soul and God's Holy Spirit, the "third person" of the Trinity.
Creating space for God to work is what the ministry of spiritual direction is mostly about. This is not as simple nor as easy as it sounds. We humans are uncomfortable with space, emptiness, and silence. It makes us feel vulnerable, out of the control. The old saying that Mother Nature abhors a vacuum probably sums up this reality as well as anything. Doubts and fears crowd in on our spaces, which many people take as lack of faith rather than the beginning of wisdom.
One of the unexpected benefits of spiritual direction training has been new ways of looking at things. For example, as I approach my certification exams, I begin to understand at last some of what's happening spiritually with The United Methodist Church in its American branch. Like Martha, we've been too concerned with our "busyness" -- if we just restructure, if we just rename something, if we take some action, our problems will be solved. I now perceive that more "busyness" isn't what God wants. Instead, I discern -- along with many others across the denomination -- that God is calling the UMC to be an empty vessel through which the divine will for companionship, love and justice can work.
There's a theological term for this act of emptying: kenosis. Probably our most famous reference to kenosis comes in Philippians 2, where the apostle Paul talks of how Jesus "emptied" himself of his divinity in order to become incarnate in human form. We often argue the "hows" of this action, because "hows" are something we humans can get our heads around. "Hows" can be measured and quantified, physically assessed in some way, which pleases our controlling egos.
What's more important to me now are the "whys" of the Incarnation. It's the reason that over the years I've moved away from the Gospel according to John, where Jesus is so divine as to be untouchable, to the synoptic Gospels, where Jesus is very human, yet connected to God in profound mystery. What I like most about how Jesus is portrayed in these accounts are his most human moments: his debate with the Syro-Phoenician woman, whom he calls a "dog"; his dismissal of the pleas of his family to come away from his apparently crazy behavior; his outburst of righteous anger at the profaning of the Temple in Jerusalem with money-changers. All of these show how truly human Jesus was.
And what of kenosis, of emptying? Think of it this way: without giving up that divine power, Jesus wouldn't have been able to experience the existence of human life fully. He wouldn't have known physical sensations of hunger and thirst, nor the seductive pull of ambition, as in his desert temptations. He wouldn't have known the love and companionship of his followers, nor the pain of their betrayals. He wouldn't have known that agonizing moment on the cross when it seemed that God had abandoned him.
Jesus learned what it is to live as human, just as through him the Divine came to a new kind of communion with humanity. And this supreme moment came about because of an act of emptying, or creating a space in time for events to unfold.
It seems to me that this is what is happening in The United Methodist Church. Just as I resisted God's invitation to undertake an expanded vocation, I've become convinced that we're being wooed into letting go of the false self we've created for The United Methodist Church in order that God might work through us.
In other words, our mission statement -- "to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world -- has it wrong. We aren't being called to "make disciples," which too many of us translate as "add members to the organization so that our numbers will look good." Nor are we necessarily called to transform the world through our good works, helpful and laudable as those are. I am convinced, in the sense of a spiritual assurance, that we United Methodists are being poked, prodded and wooed to prepare ourselves for something as-yet undefined in human terms.
This is a frightening prospect, fraught with doubts and questions and horrendous missteps as the 2012 General Conference showed. It takes great courage and even more faith to let go, to enter into an empty space where one is no longer in control, where one is no longer the actor. But neither are we being "acted upon;" God still respects human free will and constrains the divine action out of that respect. God won't "zap" us into shape; we must choose to participate.
As it happens, I'm not the only person who has made this disernment. Dozens, perhaps even hundreds or thousands, of United Methodists across America are putting effort and energy into renewing their spiritual practices. They see an urgent need for intercessory and contemplative prayer, for fasting and meditation, for learning how to tune into God's Holy Spirit. They are seeking God first in all things, before members or metrics or money. They seek to create a space to await God's companionship on the path into The United Methodist Church's future. We have a lot of emptying to do before we will know what we're to do.
This is what spiritual directors do; we create space so that humans and God can rejoice in one another. We stand by to help as needed, in the same way that midwives attend human births. And then we get the overwhelming joy of celebrating that new life has emerged.