Passing Into Another
The Lost Art of Living Tied to Another Person
"There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.” -G.K. Chesterton
In my late teens, I was in very profound friendship with a very thoughtful and gifted young man. As we grew closer, one night he confessed to me a profound fear of his. It tumbled out of him, perhaps because he knew it was unjustified, and telling me might enable him to start overcoming it.
He said he was afraid of growing too close to me for fear of losing himself.
When he shared it, it took me by surprise, because I truly couldn’t relate.
“How could that be?” I thought. When I looked at the friendship so far, I saw that drawing close to me had only made him inwardly stronger and more distinctly himself. My care for him was like a high stone garden wall around his heart, cutting him off from the harsh, cold, careless modern world around him, enabling his soul to fly carefree like a butterfly.
Sometimes we fear things because society tells us we must. Sometimes we second guess the truth simply because so few people around us actually hold it as true.
The truth is, we must pass deeply into the lives of others.
And this passing in, moving in, blending in, does not threaten us but produces us. Intimacy CREATES us.
The modern thought, held in place by a secular, individualistic dog-eat-dog world philosophy, is that growing close to someone else and truly passing into their world is an incredibly dangerous risk. They might wound us beyond repair, they might influence us away from our “true self,” they might erode away the lines of our individuality.
But my entire life has been a wondrous testimony to the exact opposite being true.
My entire life has been the strongest expression of the power and divine purpose in extremely close relationships. We do not have the power to unfold from our cocoons without the nourishment (as well as friction/pressure) from our fellow creatures that acts as a sort of sun and wind and rain to break us open.
Furthermore, without an experience of the profound and undeserved love of another living and breathing soul we have no tangible reflection of God’s love toward us. The danger of this? God’s love toward us, which is as real as the warm sun on your skin and the air in your lungs, remains an abstract idea. His love becomes something in the mind… a theological doctrine that we must continually preach and defend to ourselves. And when God’s love is abstract like this, the burden to keep proving it to ourselves becomes exhausting.
I know this first hand because there was a time when my life was hollowed out of intimate relationships. The same life that had always been defined by them was suddenly wiped of them nearly entirely. This happened my freshman year of college when I struggled to find a kindred on campus who shared my love for Jesus and biblical worldview. The danger of not being known and not being held my first two years of college was more dangerous than breaking a leg or even losing an eye. I began to become a ghost myself. (until God rescued me, but that is a story for another time!)
The old truth rose up like a bright banner and it was startlingly clear once more. We must pass into the life of another.
What do I mean by that?
I think the best way to illustrate it is to use both Scripture and personal examples. In Romans 12:15 Paul instructs us to “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” He also paints a striking portrait of emotional intimacy with the members of the early church when he says, “Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.” (Philippians 4:1)
The church was the object of his heart, the longing of his soul, his very joy and his very crown! His life had become intimately bound up with theirs. Their rejoicing was his own, and their sorrows were his own as well.
This level of love and connected-ness did not trap or limit Paul in any way but expanded him. His heart for the church freed him into his purpose and freed him from a myopic narrow self focus, and the church’s heart for Paul did the exact same for them.
Paul’s love for the infant church of God did for them the very same thing that my heart did for that young man in my late teens. He became a protective garden wall for the church to experience all the mystery and delight and struggle of growth in Christ without the criticism of the cruel outside world. What a vulnerable experience indeed it is to be walking with the Living God, fully surrendered to the hands of the Almighty! It’s a sacred road that needs protecting from the wolves of this world.
When we draw close and move into the lives of fellow believers, that is exactly what begins to happen. It’s not merely friendship; we are actually protecting and making room for the work of the grace of God in each others’ souls.
~
Teri and I took a walk down a dreamy path boarded by dame’s rocket and golden ragwort last Friday. We were on a reading mission… excited to finally have a few hours to lie down in the grass beside each other and read the same book at the same time- G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. We could only manage to be quiet beside each other for about 2 minutes at a time. Then one of us would lean near the other, looking deep into the other’s eyes with an excited awe, and share a quote that had struck deep. This delightful exchange went on and on until whole castles of ideas were built between us. As co-creators of a publication, we often have this experience where we begin to blend minds and hearts so intensely that we are anticipating each others’ thoughts, inventing our own words and language, and relishing a certain feeling that cannot be put into words at the exact same moment. I truly cannot divide my life from hers, in those moments. There are NO barriers. Of course we are physically separate, but in a spiritual sense two lives have so entirely passed into one another than now something infinitely greater exists. And we both feel a sense of weightless freedom… of complete ease and total relief. We can say anything, think anything, and the other is right there to hear it, ponder it, enter into it with us.
As Teri and I got up and gathered our things, a quiet sweeped through us. We became lost in the fragrance of Dame’s Rocket and the sweet tweets of the Spring birds. After walking on the small boardwalk that sits over a small marsh, we rounded a bend. She sighed and confessed a fear of hers.
Instantly I stopped her and looked her in the eyes. “That isn’t going to happen if you do one thing.”
“What is that?” she asked.
“This.” I said.
I took her arm and wrapped it tightly around my hip, so that we were now walking slowly hip to hip. “Do not let go of me. That will make it impossible for you to miss what He has.”
Her whole face lit up with a heavenly warmth.
It was the truth.
And how many times had she done the same for me?
We are both so entirely set on Christ, that when one of us is weak, if we simply pass into the life of the other— moving with them, flowing with them, letting them pull the weight for awhile— then we WILL make it to the destination, because the one we are yielding to is yielded to Christ.
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:21)
There is nothing to be feared here. There is no enormous risk. Why? Because Spirit draws to Spirit. It’s not really Teri holding to me or me holding to her. It’s each of us leaning hard on the Spirit that dwells in the other. This makes it easier to resist the temptation and lies of the enemy. It is difficult to see ourselves as He does. But when we see ourselves in the eyes of one who sees with His eyes? Who lavishes us with intense grace, undeserved favor, and unwavering commitment? Then we can fly forward ahead on His path of purpose.
Truly, the risk is not closeness.
The risk is never getting close enough for God to do his perfect work.
Lean in to those who God has called you to be close to.
But above all, pass into His life. Ultimately, as you walk in this way of divinely orchestrated friendship, you’re learning in an earthly sense how to do what you must be doing all the time spiritually.
When He died, you died with Him. And when He rose again, you rose again to newness of life.
“I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” (Revelation 1:18)
Oh, sisters!
Dissolve utterly into the Person who lives forever more… the first and the last! Let his victory over sin and death define you. Let the grace of God toward you in His Person ignite you.
And then? Let these special ones that God has put in your life wrap themselves around you as a protective hedge so that the most sacred relationship of all has adequate room to explode into the wild, creative, imaginative, revolutionary universe He intends it to be.
It works.
My life… especially my life at this moment, blended and melded with Teri in writing ministry… is living proof.
Take the risk!
Love, Kel