The space between

The space between

We had a little guy in the community for people with intellectual disabilities, with which I am connected, who used to get mysteriously ill. Moses was severely brain damaged after being abandoned in the forest near Chinhoyi on the day of his birth. He could not speak or help himself in any way but he made his contribution as a thermometer of the health of the community.

We would take him to the doctor but the doctor could find nothing wrong. He just got ill without cause. Without cause, that is, until we discovered the cause. When people in the community were not getting on and there were quarrels or tension Moses would immediately pick it up. It affected him so much that he became ill. He could not express the tension within him in any other way. When it finally dawned on the community that this was the cause they took pains to settle their differences before they got out of hand. And Moses stopped getting ill.

There is an incident in the book of the Acts of the Apostles (3:1-10) where Peter and John go up to the temple and on the way meet a man who was crippled from birth. He looked to them for alms but Peter said to him, “I have neither silver nor gold but I will give you what I have.” Then he took the man by the hand and helped him to stand up. “Instantly,” we are told, “his feet and ankles became firm and he jumped up and went with them into the temple.”

The incidents are very different: Peter did one type of healing, Moses another. But they were both moments of healing. And healing is what people long for. The most obvious type is physical and modern medicine has made incredible progress in this area. It has also made amazing strides in mental health. There is a third area that resists healing: personal and national relationships, Cures abound but we do not want to try them.

Blaise Pascal once said, “The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” We are unable to be still, silent, alone. We are unable to enter into the depths of our spirit and listen to the voice that is there. We call that voice ‘conscience.’  And the Spirit of God moves there for those who are attentive. In that quietness we can go deeper than our hurts, our hatreds and our prejudices and recognise, with St Clare of Assisi that, “we are challenged to search the world and rediscover the presence of God in the space between people.” Healing takes place in that space. Do we want to enter it?

29 June 2014               Feast of SS Peter and Paul

Acts 12:1-11               2 Tim 4:6-8,17-18                   Matt 16:13-19