Seek justice; give mercy.
Seek justice; give mercy.
We all are virgins of the heart. We seek, often desperately, intimacy with another person. But even in the midst of close intimacy, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or intellectual, it is not perfect. Something is always missing. It remains unsatisfactory on some deep level, whether we are immediately aware of it or not. It is incomplete. The other is somehow still distant. And so we still feel incomplete, and the drive for intimacy continues to haunt us.
We long for perfect intimacy, but are denied. It is a good thing that perfect intimacy is impossible on this side of heaven. If two human hearts met in perfect intimacy, one of two things would happen. In one situation, one heart, because of our fallen nature, would try to control and use the other heart. In the other situation, one heart would be so overwhelmed by the infinity of the other heart, so frighten at the ultimate responsibility of perfect intimacy, that it would run away.
Only in the Trinity of God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit does perfect intimacy exist, a total and complete giving and receiving—kenosis. Only can God not be tempted to control and use another’s heart. Only can God not run away from the ultimate responsibility of perfect intimacy. Only through God, with God, in God, will we finally be in perfect intimacy our hearts desire, at the great wedding banquet in heaven between the Groom and His Bride.
But this should not stop us from from reaching out to others here and now on earth. We still must open our hearts to others, for only heaven is closed to a closed heart. We attempt to prostitute our hearts only if we seek intimacy for selfish means, to control another, or to use another to alleviate the ache of our loneliness. To seek honestly and responsibly the many levels of intimacy in terms of friendship, compassion, hospitality, mercy, marriage, even prayer, is to seek out connections with others out of love.
The drive for physical, emotional, spiritual, or intellectual intimacy is a powerful energy whose source is the Body of Christ. And when we give this gift to others properly, it strengthens and reinforces the connectedness of the Body of Christ.
On one level, we all sleep alone. But not really. The one who loves is never alone.
A poem from awhile ago reflects this line from Romano Guardini in The Lord:
Love is a stream that flows from God to me, from me to my neighbor (and not to one only, but to all), from my neighbor back to God.
“Then the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb…” (Revelation 22:1)
Romano Guardini, in his book The Lord, describes how it was supposed to be:
God has shaped human life mysteriously indeed. Man’s essence is meant to leap up to its God and return with the life it has [received] from him. Man should live in a downward-sweeping movement that begins in heaven, not from earth upward, as animals do. His body should draw its sustenance from his spirit, his spirit from God; thus man’s whole being would be infused with ever-circulating vitality. But sin has broken this entity; sin that was the will to autonomous existence, that desired “to be Gods” (Gen. 3:5). And the arc of fire burned out; the ardent circle collapsed. True, man’s rational soul, being indestructible, remains, but its indestructibility has become a shadowy Erstaz. The body also remains, since it is the soul’s necessary covering, but it now covers a ‘dead’ soul, one no longer capable of transmitting to the body that life which God intended it to have. Thus life has become simultaneously real and unreal, ordered and chaotic, permanent and fleeting.
No one sin is too much for God to forgive.
Sometimes that is hard to believe. Or maybe it’s too much to trust?
If you think your sin is too bad, then it’s pride that is helping you to hold on to it instead of letting it go. Maybe you have become so attached to your sin, too self-identified with it that if you did let it go, you would not know who you would be.
Silly you. You would be you. The real you. The you that you have always been. The you that your sin has been hiding from you. The you God loves, not the fake you with your mask of sin.
Take the mask off and let’s see the beautiful real you.
God is not afraid. Why should you be?
Do you believe? Do you trust?
Even the sin of Judas would have been forgiven if he had only turned back to God. If he only trusted Jesus…