Within the place of two where the greatest connection occurs

In a 1955 lecture titled “The History of Political Theory,” Hannah Arendt said that “The modern growth of worldlessness, the withering away of everything between us, can also be described as the spread of the desert. That we live and move in a desert-world was first recognized by Nietzsche, and it was also Nietzsche who made the first decisive mistake in diagnosing it.” But even deserts, as Arendt later observes, are full of storms and elements that are beyond our control. This, more than anything, seems to be a human condition, and each generation ends up experiencing it in their own way.

But there is something more at play here, which includes the inevitable impact on the political life of a citizen. Our atomization (perhaps something Foucault already recognized) is spreading despair. As Ellmers writes, “Despair, Jaffa was fond of saying, is not only a sin (because it presumes we have been abandoned by God), but also an intellectual error.” We don’t believe in political life anymore. There is a reason for this–everywhere we look, we see corruption out in the open and we can’t do anything about it.

Maybe we have entered a post-political age, but wouldn’t even that assessment render us weak in embracing our unwanted post-modernism? No matter what, despair should never be an option, even if sadness, anger, and loneliness often rise to the surface. It’s in the act and encounter that we become fully human, and part of that act is a recognition of political life as well as truth. Ellmers’ book, The Narrow Passage: Plato, Foucault, and the Possibility of Political Philosophy, is a valuable exploration of the significance and singularity of truth and authenticity, without which political life cannot exist.

The highlight above seems important to me, and I wonder why. It’s such an obscure thought, perhaps a bit unimportant among the things currently occupying my thoughts – like war, or the end of times. But I think it highlights to me the interest He has in my single thought – why is it important to me – and therefore captures His interest too. Is it necessarily the subject of the thought itself, or that I am interested at all in the subject? Either way He is there. Of all the things He could be concerned with He is there.

From 7.30.2022 – I am aware of a pulling back, a focusing into the moment of what I am doing, what I am thinking. The process of either has always for me been an activity within a larger context – for example, investing within the context of retirement, or a business activity within the larger context of promotion, whether in money or position. I am finding a level of comfort in just doing the activity as something I want to do, to concentrate on it, to do it well, to listen for detail, to find a satisfaction in its completion. And then letting the consequences of that work rest within His thoughts for my life.

Listening, and writing, has made me aware of the power of small things in my life. The meaning of words, and how they are linked together, have caused on occasion a shifting of what was seemingly revealed because a word interpretation changed my understanding. It may seem a little thing, this moving of focus and thoughts to the modest task at hand, but within it I have found a personal joy of accomplishment. Is it complete, this joy when something is done? I don’t know if it matters that much; the joy seems to be in the activity itself, and not in finishing the activity, though this is important too. A thought, a turn of phrase is much like a finished carpentry project – does it appear to be what I first imagined?

I see Him moving with the broad brushstrokes of creation - a massive, continuing endeavor of exploration of the great within. Yet I also see much more of Him, and His intense concern for details, within the smallest things of my attention, as if all are the most important to Him. Would the salvation of one be more important to Him than providing food for a day to another? Would a nation garner more of His attention than a single man? I don’t think so, if His awareness of my thoughts and activities are any indication.

He understands my feelings, my desires, my dreams. Are they of interest to Him among such great catastrophes that have descended upon man these past years - of wars, sickness, death, and the massively influential events that might come? From what I have seen the answer is yes: they are of such intimate concern that He would speak directly to them, and multiple times if necessary.

If He finds the details of my life to be so important then perhaps my pull back to the greater focus of what I am thinking and doing is becoming more important to me too. It seems it is not so much where I am going - it is where I am. And, I believe, it is there where He is too.

Even this reflection of a past post is a current connection to Him today. The post still means something. It’s a reminder of an awareness forgotten – am I still conscious of the small things, those things of intimacy, the inside relationship? How I long for a set place of awareness, not needing a constant reminder of where I have been, whether in thought or deed. That said, I do sense a growth in that direction, not so much of a concern for the future as perhaps living a bit more within the present, the moment of connection. There is more there in that moment He would reveal.

It is always within the place of two where the greatest connection occurs. Your sense of the future occupies your thoughts, and they are relevant to where we are going, but the intimacy of thought together is where we are now, and that place always captures My attention as well. You are right that both perspectives are extremely important to Me.

Yet from the place of intimacy flows the power to affect the greater direction of men: a birth that becomes the potential for change of man within God; a death unseen by most, misunderstood by all, yet when embraced changes the course of all men.

Is My concern the completion of My creation, My plan? Or do I see the smallest of details, even the tiniest of prophetic ‘coincidences’, as the place where My desires are completed? It is both, but always of the heart first.

Where am I, where are you? Here are My thoughts, what are you thinking? It is there, in those moments, we have the greatest connection, the greatest of intimacy. And it is there we would always want to be. So cherish the small thing, whether thought or act, for it is great in the Kingdom of God.