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Strength
in Our Inner Being 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705 Scripture Readings: 2 Kings 4:42-44, Ephesians
3:14-21, Luke 15:1-10 The musical artist Sting wrote a song entitled Message in a bottle: Just a castaway Sting provides a great
example of someone who has plenty of people around him, ample opportunity for
the intimacy of sex, a very public life, and yet he still has those moments of
feeling lost and alone. But like parents in the next room when their child
wonders if they gone, we are never far from the breadth and length and height
and depth of God’s love. One
of the great developmental tasks for parent and child is to nurture the ability
of the child to be alone and not feel terrified or unloved. As the infant becomes aware that the world
does not respond to her every whim, they will cry bloody murder. But if the infant is allowed to be alone for
a while, and then the parent returns and shows love and support, then the child
begins to trust that they can survive.
If the child is never left alone, then they don’t develop the
understanding and trust that they can survive and thrive alone. If they are neglected for too long, then
they develop a fear of abandonment and/or a lack of trust in the love of the
parent. Young kids have a hard time understanding that if they are
neglected it is not their fault. So
many of us develop a sense of guilt or shame around separation. So as we grow we may be clingy, or push
people away before they can hurt us, afraid that if we commit and reveal
ourselves, we will not be left alone. Nobody is perfect, not our parents, not us, so each of us
has connectional or relational issues that haunt us, and most if not all of us
feel lonely or abandoned at least some of the time. Moreover, it is simply one of the byproducts of human
consciousness itself that we are aware of our aloneness, of our separation from
God. We are alone and we know we are
alone. We long for the connectedness of
the womb and the Garden. We make in marriage a covenant to live our lives
together. And in sexual ecstasy we
momentarily lose that sense of separateness.
But after the moment is over the feeling of separateness and aloneness
can return quickly and vividly.
Especially in relationships without commitment, we often sense that we
have given too much of ourselves and we want to retreat back into our
separateness. That is why, in the long
run, despite pop wisdom, sex between those whose commitment enables trust will
always be richer than the alternatives.
Paul Tilich writes, “Our desire to protect our aloneness is expressed in
the feeling of shame. We feel
ashamed. We feel ashamed when our
intimate self, mental or bodily, is opened.
We try to cover our nakedness, as did Adam and Eve when they became
conscious of themselves. Thus man and woman
remain alone even in the most intimate union.
They cannot penetrate each other’s innermost center.” (Tillich, Paul. The Eternal Now.p.17) Our most common moments for feeling lonely are when we have
been left by those with whom we have felt connected by relationship. We are more mobile than ever in our society,
so more and more family and friends separate from us. For many, this lack of connection or community leads to
depression. Tillich again, “There are two forms of loneliness that
cannot either be covered or escaped: the loneliness of guilt and the loneliness
of death. Nobody can remove from us
what we have committed against our true being.” Guilt often transforms our loneliness into experiences of
judgment. And there “is that ultimate experience of having to
die. In the anticipation of our death
we remain alone. No communication with
others can remove it, as no other’s presence in the actual hour of our dying
can conceal the fact that it is our death, and our death alone. In the hour of death we are cut off from the
whole universe and everything in it. We
are deprived of all the things and beings that made us forget our being
alone. Who can endure this
loneliness? (Tillich, p.21) This issue of the loneliness is fresh in my mind because of
the death of my father in law, Sylvestre Duran, in Guatemala. Feliciana moved away from her family to form
a new one with me here in the United States.
It is tough whenever we move away from what we know, but especially
difficult to change cultures. You are
ever more aware of your separateness.
And then, of course, when there are those nodal moments in a family’s
life, birth, marriage, accident, sickness or death, the distance between you
and those you love is highlighted. Last November, as Feliciana’s mother, Soila, died
tragically after being hit by a car, Sylvestre was left to deal with his
pancreatic cancer without the loving care of his long time wife. He and Feliciana spent time sharing and
crying over their loneliness on the phone.
When Feliciana heard that her father Sylvestre was not going to live
long we began to plan a trip down for her.
He died before she could get there, and Feliciana spoke of feeling bad
that she was not able to be there with him, to accompany him and say
goodbye. She left immediately to get
there in time for the first service. It
had to be a lonely trip down and we boys certainly felt our inability to take
that feeling away for her. So we felt
lonely too, and we felt separated from the healing process of memorial. And my heart aches for Feliciana’s sister,
who was unable to go down to join her family in grief. The separateness of national borders is more
than just geography. Feliciana also
spoke of the empty feeling in the house where her parents built a life
together. In grief we are reminded in a
thousand ways of the persons we miss.
People very often describe the loneliness of grief as feeling lost. We have a hard time getting our bearings. Always associated with the loss of someone we love is grief
over unfinished business. As long as
someone is alive, as long as we are alive, we may hold the hope that we can
redeem our sins and fix old wounds. We
can find our way once again. There are
the things that we have done that we should not have done, and the things that
we should have done that we did not do, and death marks the spot of no return,
the point where unfinished business must remain unfinished. And so, as we face death we must face our
sins, our separation, the fact that we have lost our way from God. But Jesus tells us that God searches us out like a shepherd
who is searching for Her lost sheep, or like a woman searches for her lost
coin. It doesn’t matter how long we
have been lost, when we are found, when we open ourselves to the presence of
God’s eternal love and forgiveness, God rejoices and welcomes us into this eternity. The
grace of God enables us to see that while we are conscious of our individuality
and separateness, we are not imprisoned in that consciousness, but free because
the eternal God of love and life is everywhere and forever present. “And
for this reason, “ says Paul, “I bow on my knees before the Father, from whom
every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of
his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in
your inner being. 17] and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, Strengthened with might in
our inner being, Rooted and grounded in love, despite being conscious of our
separateness, despite our imperfections, despite the imperfection of the
family, society and world around us, despite the deterioration of our bodies,
despite death, we have hope that surpasses this knowledge, and with others or
apart, we are filled with the fullness of God.
And so in God’s grace, we send off those we love with great hope, the
hope given by the faithfulness of Christ, and we face our own death with
strength and faith. We may die today or tomorrow, but God’s love through Christ
is present now and forever. It is a part of our faith practice to spend time in
solitude, to open ourselves to the powerful, mysterious presence of God. As we learn to trust in the presence of
grace, we may meet our particular, individual space and moment in this life
with joy and courage. We gain courage
to meet those isolated, lost parts of ourselves, to welcome our whole selves
with love. And, Being with
ourselves enables us to be with others and to contribute with creativity,
action or wisdom. Tillich goes on: “It is man’s greatness that he is centered
within himself. Separated from his
world, he is thus able to look at it.
Only because he can look at it can he know and love and transform it…He
can ask questions and give answers and make decisions. He has the freedom for good or evil. Only he who has an impenetrable center in
himself is free…this is the greatness and this is the burden of man.” For better and worse, we will all, at times, feel lonely, and at times need to be with ourselves in solitude to help solidify our individual identity and place in a universe permeated by the powerful love of God. This gives us strength to be in relationship, to form a community where we the lost are found, where the hungry are fed, where the grief and loneliness of life are faced squarely, and yet are surpassed with the nourishing joy of God’s love and community. |