Thur, August 1

Jesus’ stories usually contain some detail that grabs the imagination. One stand-out feature in this parable of the rich fool (as this story is often named…) is the bigger barns this man builds to store all his grain and possessions.

In a country in which people have so much “stuff” we have to store what we can’t use in row upon row of storage facilities littering our landscape; in a time when our television viewing options include not one but several “reality shows” about people who hoard – including shows that feature hoarding and storage facilities combined! – this parable certainly chimes a contemporary note. Many Americans seem to have become more and more attached to having more belongings than we can use, and we are indeed “building bigger barns” to store it all. Some compulsively buy new things on credit, and then go into debt to store them.

Commentators more knowledgeable than I have noted this phenomenon and reasons for it. In part it reflects anxiety about our economy, and about cultural change – a literal unwillingness to let go of the past even when we no longer need to hang on to it.

I believe it has deeper, spiritual roots as well – we are literally stuffing, trying to fill the vacant places in our hearts. As communities have become more dispersed, and families often more fragmented; as technological and cultural change seems to accelerate while economic possibilities seem to shrink; and as people have become less familiar with the language and practice of faith traditions, and less rooted in communities that nurture spiritual connection – there is a spiritual void.

We don’t like emptiness, for the most part. We seek to fill it with all kinds of things, mostly so that we can numb the feelings of aloneness or disconnection it brings. Filling spiritual emptiness with material things doesn’t work, as we know. Feelings that get stuffed down or numbed out just emerge in other, often more destructive, ways.

Few of us are hoarders, yet we might still ask ourselves, before God, “Is there anything I think I need more of than I really do? Anything – time, money, Facebook friends, awards, meetings on my calendar – that makes me feel more secure because I have a lot of it?”

Here’s another question I suggest for today: “Is there a pain or emptiness in me I haven’t been willing to feel? Do I numb myself with work, food, alcohol, games, television, internet, [fill in the blank]? What if I let that feeling bubble up this morning, give it some air, feel it?”

There you are, sitting quietly in the company of the God who made you - you can take the risk. And I find that feelings, once they’re felt, tend to quiet down and fade away. Like two-year-olds, they mostly want to be acknowledged.

And then, instead of emptiness, we have some holy space to fill with holy peace, holy passion, holy presence. Those gifts are constantly renewed – and we don’t need a storage shed to keep them in.

That is my prayer for you today – holy peace, holy passion, holy presence of the One who made you.