Filling the Hole
Whether we are aware of it or not there is a huge hole inside of each of us that we are constantly trying to fill, often without success. This hole has a major influence on the way we live our lives. Our problem is we try to fill this hole with the wrong things. We think that things like possessions and work and popularity will take away our inner ache and satisfy our longing for happiness. The truth is they don’t. Accumulation, achievement and our need for the approval of others cannot fill our empty hole. To believe otherwise is an illusion and a false philosophy. We human beings have a terrible habit of looking for happiness in the wrong places.
The hole inside of us can only be filled by love. It is love, in fact it is unconditional love, that takes away our inner restlessness. This is why God is the only one who can fill our empty hole. Only God is unconditional love. God loves without requirements and without restrictions. To let ourselves be loved as we are by God is the only way to satisfy the yearning in our hearts.
To let myself be loved unconditionally by God is to know that I am enough. When I am able to say, ‘I am enough’ I am able to say, ‘I have enough.’ If I am not able to say, ‘I am enough’ I will continue to want more. I will want more and more possessions, information, success, recognition, approval, power. To be able to say, ‘I have enough’ is a sign that I am filling my inner hole with the right kind of love.
Of course the culture we live in today does not make it easy for us to say, ‘I have enough.’ Our culture is driven by capitalist and consumerist philosophies; by making money and spending money. It is notable how often we are referred to in the media as consumers. Our culture is also driven by a work ethic that has us measure our worth by what we do, by our achievements and successes. Then there is the impact of social media sites like Facebook that feed our desire for attention and the approval of others. There are powerful forces at work in our lives that want us to fill the hole we have inside with the wrong things. It takes a lot of self-awareness to recognise these forces and much courage to say ‘no’ to them.
There are two ways to fill the hole we have inside. One works, the other doesn’t. The decision is ours to make!
The Second Gaze
There are two ways of seeing. These can be described as the first gaze and the second gaze. The first gaze is influenced by the false self. The second gaze comes out of the true self. Our calling as human beings made in God’s image is to move from the first gaze to the second gaze.
Most of us tend to see with the first gaze most of the time. The first gaze is my default way of seeing myself and others. It is also the way the culture in which I live wants to see me. My first gaze is a reaction to my feelings of inadequacy. I feel I am not good enough. And if I am not good enough then others are not good enough either. It is my feelings of inadequacy that make me defensive and fearful and competitive and judgemental and controlling and anxious. Because of my feelings of inadequacy I need to accumulate and achieve in order to feel good about myself. I also constantly seek the approval of others. If I see myself in a negative way then I will gaze on others and on the things that happen in the world in a negative way.
The second gaze is the way God sees. The second gaze sees me, other people and creation as good and loveable. In the second gaze I am always worthy of love and belonging. And so are others. When I know that I am worthy of love and belonging I am open and trusting and cooperative and inclusive. I am also able to take the risk of standing ‘undefended.’ The second gaze is the fruit of contemplative practice. Contemplative practice is a way of praying that allows me to listen, to receive, to let myself be loved as I am, to accept the gift of my belovedness which has, in fact, already been given to me. It enables me to see who I am in God. Perhaps the best fruit of contemplative practice is compassion. Through contemplative practice I am able to gaze on myself, others and the world with a compassionate heart.
Even though we long for the second gaze we tend to settle for the first one. This is because the first gaze comes more easily to us than the second. Moving from the first gaze to the second gaze involves facing up to our false selves, a process which is difficult and demanding. For many of us it takes a crisis, especially a mid-life crisis, to make us finally accept that we are finding our value in what we have, in what we do and in what other people think of us. Our crises invite us to stop defining ourselves by these external sources of value and instead to find our value within. The truth is we are not going to move into the freedom of the second gaze unless and until we stop searching for happiness in the wrong places.
Sent from the Father
Jesus is an immortal diamond. There are so many sides to him, so many ways of seeing him and of understanding the meaning and purpose of his life and mission. But no matter how we choose to understand Jesus we can never separate him from his Father. The life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth only make sense when seen in relation to God the Father, the one Jesus called Abba. The Father is not just the best prism for gazing at Jesus. He is the only prism.
There are many reasons why Jesus was sent into the world by the Father. Here are three:
Firstly, Jesus is the one who reveals the Father. St John, the beloved disciple, writes: “No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son who is nearest to the Father’s heart who has made him known” (John 1:18). Jesus, the Father’s Beloved Son, has first-hand experience of the Father. He knows the Father personally and intimately. He knows who the Father is. He knows the contours of the Father’s heart and he knows the love that the Father has for humanity. There is no one better placed to reveal the Father than Jesus.
Secondly, Jesus is the one who leads us to the Father’s house; he shows us how to find our way back home. This is what he means when he says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). In the Letter to the Hebrews Jesus is described as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (see 12:2). He is the one who leads us in our faith and brings it to completion. If we did not have the guidance of Jesus we would find ourselves wandering around in a wilderness, lost and confused. Jesus is our compass. It is he who keeps us focused on our destination. And our destination is the house of the Father, the place where we will know that we are accepted, cherished and safe.
Thirdly, Jesus is our companion. Not only does he show us the way to the Father’s house, he also accompanies us on our journey there. Jesus is not a detached authority figure who tells us what to do from a distance. He is our brother who walks alongside us. In the Incarnation Jesus made himself one with us. He entered into solidarity with us, sharing our joys and our sorrows, our successes and our failures, our hopes and our fears. And because of his resurrection Jesus continues to be present to us and in us as our invisible companion. On our journey home to the Father’s house we have the faithful friendship of Jesus.
Christmas
There is a story told about a child who woke up from a dream in the middle of the night frightened. She was on her own so she cried out for protection. Her mother who was in the bedroom next door heard her cry and immediately came to comfort her. The mother tried to reassure her daughter that she was safe and that there was no reason for her to be frightened. ‘Don’t you know that God is looking after you,’ she said. ‘Yes mummy I know God is looking after me,’ the child replied, ‘but tonight I need a God with skin on!’
Jesus was God with skin on. People met God in the humanity of Jesus. This is what we are celebrating at Christmas; we call it the Incarnation. In Jesus, God became one of us; he became one with us. On that first Christmas night “The Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). Jesus of Nazareth was the very human face of God, the person in whom God was met and known in the most concrete of ways.
Because Jesus was God with skin on, you and I are also God with skin on. If God dwelt in the humanity of Jesus then God dwells in your humanity and in mine. What we are celebrating at Christmas is not just the extraordinary fact that God put on flesh in Jesus, but the even more extraordinary fact that we put flesh on God for each other. This truth is poetically expressed in this little verse: “I sought my soul I could not see; I sought my God and He eluded me; I sought my neighbour and I found all three.” In the concrete reality of our neighbour we meet God. In the earthiness of our neighbour we meet God. In the humanness of our neighbour we meet God. This is the implication of what happened on that first Christmas all those years ago. The birth of Jesus raised the dignity of our humanity to a whole new realm. Whether we are aware of it or not, God is living and loving in each of us and this makes us sacred vessels and channels of the divine presence. To accept this is to accept that our humanity is the primary means through which God is involved in our world. To quote the words attributed to St Teresa of Avila:
“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the earth, yours are the feet by which He is to go about doing good and yours are the hands by which He is to bless us now.”