The community continually committed themselves to learning what the apostles taught them, gathering for fellowship, breaking bread, and praying. Everyone felt a sense of awe because the apostles were doing many signs and wonders among them. There was an intense sense of togetherness among all who believed; they shared all their material possessions in trust. They sold any possessions and goods that did not benefit the community and used the money to help everyone in need. They were unified as they worshiped at the temple day after day. In homes, they broke bread and shared meals with glad and generous hearts. The new disciples praised God, and they enjoyed the goodwill of all the people of the city. Day after day the Lord added to their number everyone who was experiencing liberation.

- Acts 2:42-47, The Voice translation

“The disciples didn’t leave Jesus’ side with a fully memorized set of beliefs. Rather, theirs was a loving way of life that had become the air they breathed, anchored in contemplation and fully dedicated to kinship as its goal.”

- Gregory Boyle

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

- Rumi

I was surprised and giddy with excitement to find myself waking up on the Mediterranean Sea a few weeks ago. I’d been facilitating a monthly gathering of 11 ministers for 3 years and part of our journey together was to include a fully-funded trip to Israel and Palestine. The trip had been scheduled and postponed twice - this was the third try. I don’t think any of us believed we were actually going until we landed in Tel Aviv.

Other than my barely under the 44-pound limit suitcase, I arrived with nothing - no expectations, no assumptions, not even a concrete itinerary.

It was an odd place for me to be. Almost always leading the way, I tend to be in the know about all of the details, and I also tend to have at least some expectations about how things will go. Not this time - not on this pilgrimage.

In her book 3000 Miles to Jesus, Lisa Deam calls this “...one of the most baffling lessons of pilgrimage. The world tells us to accrue more and more as we go along in life. Even on our spiritual journey, we’re supposed to acquire more: more answers, more wisdom, more faith, more (spiritual) wealth. The pilgrim’s way, by contrast, is a way of letting go.”

It’s a counter-cultural, counter-intuitive way.

I, along with the rest of our group, would be led into some beautifully decorated spaces. The art, the architecture & the icons were incredible. You could spend hours in each chapel, basilica or church. One of my favorites this time was the humble Church of the Ten Lepers - a Greek Orthodox church where a tiny congregation still gathers - in it sits a small cave that is believed to be the place a colony of outcast lepers was confined before they were restored & returned to community by Jesus.

Those who’ve been to the Holy Land know that once an important site was discovered, it was usually commemorated by constructing some kind of building around or above it. For example, The Church of the Multiplication was built around the rock where it is believed Jesus placed the bread and fish that were multiplied to feed a hungry crowd.

And while these human-made spaces are often breathtakingly beautiful, many are so decorated, so busy, so grand that they make it hard to imagine, hard to experience and hard to connect with what originally made this place so special.

I appreciated the beauty, but this time I was most drawn to the more spacious places - the open, barren, even tomb-like spaces on our journey -

like the open sea,

like the Pool at Bethesda,

like the empty garden tomb.

We went to so many beautiful churches, but it was here - in these open, barren, even tomb-like spaces that I felt most connected to the stories & the storytellers and the Life that flowed there.

And I’ve been wondering why.

What is it about these hallowed spaces that spoke to me?

The more I’ve thought about it, I can’t help but think that it has something to do with the unexpected healing that tends to happen in spaces like these.

Just think about how the air was cleansed when we stopped filling it with pollution during the pandemic. Just think about what happens in our bodies when we take a slow, deep breath. And just think about what happened in the lives of those on the margins when Jesus made space for them and what happens to us when we feel fully welcomed & included & like there is room for us to be ourselves.

In her book, Church of the Wild, Victoria Loortz, tells about what’s been happening as she’s been making more space in her life to show up in nature. “I felt welcomed back into a conversation I didn’t even realize I was missing,” she writes.

In my own life, I’ve also noticed something happening when I carve out time for the space-making practice of meditation. When ending each practice, more often than not, I unexpectedly find myself with my hand over my heart. That space is cultivating a tenderness and a compassion with myself that I didn’t even know I needed.

Yet, even though we have experienced the benefits of making space in our lives, it can be challenging to believe there is value in it.

We have, after all, been conditioned to FILL space - with stuff, with plans, with screens, with clever schemes that will get us where we think we need to go. If we’re honest, we’re most of us are also comfortable filling space because we’re afraid of what we might see or hear free of all the noise and activity.

There are reasons we resist making space, but there are even more reasons we must do it anyway.

When the dust settled after Rome executed Jesus for making too much room for all the wrong people, Jesus followers began embodying his ministry. It was the healing path & the way to more and more life. What formed were these odd gatherings of people who would not typically be found eating together.

And as they set aside their titles, merit & status, as they came together as equals, they began to see differently. They saw an opportunity to live deeper into the Way. And as the story according to Acts goes, they began selling what they could and redistributed their wealth so that everyone had enough.

According to theologian Wille Jennings, “Money here would be used to destroy what money normally is used to create: distance and boundaries between people…these followers of Jesus will become the bridge between uneven wealth and resources, uneven hope, and uneven life.” (Jennings, Willie James. Acts (Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible) (p. 50).)

What developed in the words of Father Gregory Boyle, was not so much a religion as a way of living and seeing. And walking that way would lead them to be known later in Acts as “these people who have been turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).

And it all started with making more and more space.

It may be countercultural & counterintuitive, but it is the healing work our souls, our communities, and our planet must have.

Maybe that is what drew my attention to the tomb, the pool, the sea, and the spaces left vacant but for ancient ruins. They are places where the possibility of new life and healing are palpable and I can’t help but wonder what will happen as we continue to make more and more space -

more space in our bodies,

more space in our souls,

more space at our tables.

Where do you need to make more space?

How might you begin cultivating more room to breathe, to see, to listen, to know, to be known, to love?

How can we continue to make more and more room at this table and in this community together?

And what healing, what ripples of new life, what resurrection will be made possible as we do?

The unexpected power of making space

Soulful summer together

A good friday meditation