Spaciousness

So...it's the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy.  Time for people to reflect; time for people to remember; time for people to come up with profound sayings, which is what i want =).  But like i've said before, profound sayings does not come from trying.

I had many thoughts running through my head today...actually, not from remembering 9/11, but from events commemorating the tragedy.  I attended and was involved in an interfaith service this morning and then i attended a talk by the Interfaith Amigos this afternoon.  It was amazing!!  A lot of what they talked about spoke directly to my current faith journey.  It may even feel like God is speaking to me with all these seeming "coincidences".  I think one of the themes that i feel like their talk seemed to reinforce was just how big God is. Religion tries to understand God, and in doing so, many times tries to box God in.  C.S Lewis, through a talking animal, basically said that God is not tame.  But that's exactly what we've done with God.  Even many of those that claim not to.  Their talk got me thinking about Christianity and what it is, and how it started.  And how important actually thinking about it is.  I won't get into it (because, like i said, i don't want this to become a political or spiritual platform) but suffice it to say that i'm beginning to see that God is bigger than religion.  And that is a scary place to be!!

My counselor urged me to try to think about what it might be like to experience God choosing me, running after me, seeking hard for me.  Today, i realized that maybe this confusion and uncomfortable-ness that i'm experiencing might be what it feels like when God is actively seeking me--seeking to connect to me.  My friend brought up a sermon by Don Everts where he talks about what it would be like for a tree to try to describe to another tree its experience with a human.  It's totally foreign!!  That's us with God!!  And that's why it's scary, and confusing, and may "hurt" when God (in God's infinite "otherness") actively imposes God-self in my life--but in a way that is also subtle enough that i can take it in slowly.

I'll end with this thought.  The Muslim Sheikh of the Interfaith Amigos said that one of the aspects taught by Islam is "Spaciousness".  I don't think there is enough of that--esp. in my life.  And that is what i am seeking to create, allow.  9/11 was indeed a great tragedy--a tragedy of lives lost, lives taken, and lives changed forever.  I don't want to diminish that pain, but i feel like one of the greatest tragedies of 9/11 was the death of "spaciousness"--the death of dialogue and conversation and the birth of fear, which leads to hatred, which is really fear in disguise.  How do we rid ourselves of this hatred?  We must dispel the fear.  How do we dispel the fear?  We must allow room to "yada" (Hebrew for "to know"--with many definitions of "to know" included in that one word) that which we fear.  How do we "yada" that which we fear?  We must allow "spaciousness".  I must allow "spaciousness".  I think that's where we find God.