Chapter 5 – Sacred

[Jerry Wierwille]

Quotes
“Grace is when you aren’t striving or controlling or trying to change or manipulate or make something happen. Grace is when you find yourself carried along, when all that’s left to do is receive.” (p. 99)

“But what we long for, what we really want, is someone who will see our best and our worst – and still want to be with us.” (p. 100)

“Grace doesn’t brush over our sins and failures and faults – it sees them clearly in all their Technicolor mess.” (p. 101)

“Sex involves all of you – your mind, your spirit, your heart, your soul, your body – because you don’t just have a body, you are a body.” (p. 102)

“Spirituality is not about escape from the body or this world; it’s about being fully present in it.” (p. 103)

“Something powerful happens when you celebrate who you are and what you have – namely, your body. It is a fascinating mix of dust and spirit, and it is yours and it is good.” (p. 103)

“To forgive, you first have to name the hurt. It may be an actual phrase they used or an action they took; other times, it may be a feeling that you pick up. Whatever it is, you can’t send it away if you don’t know what it is.” (p. 105)

“The space between you is sacred because when you live beyond yourself, orienting yourself around the thriving of another, you are reflecting the image of God.” (p. 110)

“We do this [cheer at weddings] because we intuitively know that this risk they’re taking is where the life is. Whenever you create something, there is the chance that it will fall apart, the possibility that your heart will be broken.” (p. 111)

“As you allow this divine love to flow between you, it inevitably flows through you both, spilling over into the world around you.” (pp. 111-12)

Response
Something “magical” happens inside your soul and the space between you and another person when you find that someone who does not baulk at you dark side, who looks at you and says “don’t worry about it”….I know what it’s like, who sees you the same way now as they did before you just confessed the worst part of who you are. “The space between you is sacred because when they do this, they’re showing you what God is like” (p. 102).

Bell talks about the sacredness of the space between you [and your partner] being about sensing that there is a depth to your experiences that goes beyond the simple experience between you two alone. The sacredness of the space involves its ability to point us to something deeper, something more complex about the whole marriage thing; something divine about it all. In the sacred space, we can experience realities like “grace and forgiveness and trust and hope” (p. 108). Realities that show us a glimpse of what God is like by experiencing the world with this other person you have chosen to be with forever. Something about the space we create between us reflects aspects of God’s image, and without protecting the sacredness of that space, we would never experience the inexplicable wonder of marriage that brings us closer to the divine.

The real essence of the zimzum of love is that zimzum is not something that you feel, it is something you create. It is the very life-force flowing through your relationship as you act in the well-being and consideration of your partner. Zimzum creates a space that “isn’t broken and divided but one and whole” (p. 112). Ultimately zizuming is not about you and your partner. Zimzuming is about the whole world. It is about letting the energies between you two accelerate and build and gain such momentum that they “move out beyond you because there is a larger purpose to your marriage” (p. 112).

[Author]

Posts