Midweek Faith Lift
October 13, 2021
Rev. Deb Hill- Davis
The Quality of Emptiness
"If you know you are the Beloved, you can live with an enormous amount of success and an enormous amount of failure without losing your identity. Because your identity is that you are the Beloved… The question becomes ‘Can I live a life of faith in the world and trust that it will bear fruit?’" —Henri Nouwen
As we begin this journey together to explore, unpack and understand the conditions for a miracle, we pause to recognize that it is a journey of faith. Do we have faith that it will bear fruit? We finished last week’s lesson saying yes we are willing to show up, to do our part whatever Spirit reveals our part to be in unfolding a miracle. We said yes to holding space for the opposite polarity of plenty for all that Jesus demonstrated with feeding the 5000. How we are to manifest that reality of generosity, fullness, inclusion and enough for all is yet to be revealed. This week we explore and consider how it is we take the first step, which turns out to be, paradoxically, a step of emptying ourselves.
Let’s take a look at what this means for us….let us begin with the first line of the Gospel of Matthew 14:13
“And hearing Jesus withdrew from there in a boat into a desert place privately and having heard, the crowd followed Him on foot from the cities.”
This is the opening line of the story of the Loaves and Fishes in Matthew and it is of critical importance because it sets the first condition that must always initiate a miraculous event. Jesus withdraws into the desert, which in the Middle East is a place devoid of life, of food, of substantial resources. Jesus is in a place of profound emptiness, of nothingness. He had just heard of the death of his cousin, John the Baptist, the one who had baptized him at the beginning of his public ministry. The death of John at the direction of Herod was a direct result of a political act, an act to please a young girl who was the daughter of Herod’s mistress. Sounds about right, for politics, doesn’t it?
What the author, Todd Michael, notes is that a desert is a place of emptiness and as such it creates a vacuum, and nature or Spirit immediately wants to fill that vacuum. In creating a vacuum, we set in motion the energy of the Universe to fill it, which is the first condition of a miracle. The Greek word anechorisen, which means to depart, signifies so much more than just leaving a place. It also means “to withdraw the self” or in the language of psychology, to withdraw the ego. The next word in Greek is topon, which means a place, but also means a condition or opportunity, i.e. a place of potential. The next word is eremon, which means desert, but also means an empty or solitary place. And finally, idian
means privately, but can also mean “pertaining to the self.”
So if we were to restate this opening line it would read as Dr. Michael states on page 23 of Twelve Conditions of a Miracle:
Jesus went away into the desert, alone. There he withdrew his self, or ego, by going down into a state of emptiness and inner stillness –a place or condition of potential.
If we are to emulate Jesus in this miracle-making process, then we also withdraw our ego, empty the “self” into a state of emptiness and stillness, which creates this condition of potential. Much easier said than done, however! There is a saying from the Zen Buddhist tradition: “If you want to drink Zen tea, first you must empty your cup!” What does this process of self-emptying feel and look like, anyway?
One clue is the background information about the death of John the Baptist, which is told in the gospel right before this story of loaves and fishes. We don’t get a lot of story about it regarding the reaction and grief of Jesus at the loss of his cousin and mentor. However, that loss of his kinsman and confidante had to be a huge emptying, leaving an incredible void in the life of Jesus. Where he had once had a supporter whose job was to prepare the way for Jesus and his ministry, now there was nothing and no one save Mary Magdalene or Mary, his mother. His response is to withdraw to a place of emptiness, the desert, which reflected his emptiness.
What is noteworthy in this story is that Jesus, bereft of his cousin and John’s support and love, did not stay in the desert and collapse into sadness and despair. His resilience and ability to hold that loss, empty himself of ego, and remain present to all around him is the truly remarkable part of the story. The crowds also heard of the death of John the Baptist and followed Jesus into the desert, the place of emptiness, of pure potential. They would have known of the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus and they would have understood the political nature of his death. Yet they followed Jesus into the emptiness.
This is highly significant for us because we too are emptied by significant and huge losses, especially when we take time apart to acknowledge and truly feel them. These losses of loved ones, of resources, of relationships, of possessions, of life and limb, are all part of an emptying process that opens a vacuum of pure potential. What is important to recognize is that the bigger the loss, the emptier the vacuum, the more powerful the energy to attract what might fill it. Jesus along with his followers in the desert had experienced a huge loss. We as a human family in our country have also experienced a huge loss of over 700,000 lives to the Covid 19 Pandemic. Both individually and collectively, we have been emptied, allowing space for Spirit to fill the vacuum.
What deeply spiritual people who are so directly connected to the energy of Creation demonstrate is incredible resilience. That is what Jesus demonstrated by his response to the people who followed him. That is what leaders like John Lewis, Gandhi, and Dr. King demonstrated in their lives and modeled for others. That is what the civil rights marchers demonstrated day after day, over months and years; a spiritual resilience of emptiness and staying present for Spirit to do Spirit’s work. As Henri Nouwen said in the opening quotation, staying present for both enormous success and enormous failure is what is asked of us in the spiritual life. It takes time, patience, practice, and persistence.
Personally, when I first started down a truly spiritual path, I did not have that faith, persistence, patience or resilience. I spent a lot of time in the desert, weeping and gnashing my teeth! I railed at God, “Why me?” I demanded! And “Why not you?” was the answer I had to learn to accept and then come to love and appreciate! I didn’t want to lose everything, my house, my marriage, all our money, and sense of financial security! It took me 2 years in the desert before I finally began to emerge as a newly remade being, empty of most of my ego and just about all of my old self. I came to realize over time and was finally able to recognize in retrospect that the emptying was creating space for an enormous number of miracles in my life. I could see none of them while I was in the desert. It really was a time of “just put one foot in front of the other and lead with love.” It was a time of learning to love.
What that has meant for me is that over time, as I have cultivated spiritual muscle, I do have more resilience, which is something we all need much more of right now. It is important to note that at the end of this miracle story, Jesus again withdrew to a mountaintop alone, another place of emptiness and silence. That part of the story illustrates the great circle of Being that gives us hope. In the ongoing story of humanity, there is a circularity at work, an evolution of consciousness that traverses the same experiences but opens to greater learning with each turn of the wheel, as the Buddhists say.
Science tells us that the Universe is ever-expanding and likewise, consciousness is also ever-expanding. If you live long enough, you begin to realize that you get the same lessons more than once. If you are an astute observer and willing to learn, then the lessons also change as you grow in consciousness. It is hugely liberating to realize that for yourself. When you can say, wow, I used to get really bent out of shape and all wigged out about that and now it doesn’t bother me at all….well that’s something, isn’t it? I call that spiritual and emotional growth!!
It is what has brought us to these times and we are called to hold space and hold the light for all to wake up and grow into the full potential that this void has opened for us all. I want to close today with the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes from Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times
--by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, syndicated from moonmagazine.org, Mar 13, 2020:
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times.
The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires … causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both — are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
…There will always be times in the midst of “success right around the corner, but as yet still unseen” when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.
The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.
In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But … that is not what great ships are built for.
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb