There is great gain in godliness with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
I Timothy 6:6-8
Several reflections ago, we discussed the building blocks of a relationship. The first is respect/safety, commonality (sharing something in common), building attraction or rapport (not necessarily romantic), trust, love and finally vulnerability/intimacy. (Unless otherwise stated, “intimacy” in this reflection does not refer to sexual intimacy.)
Intimacy, for the purposes of this reflection, means a complete acceptance of someone without agenda. Intimacy is a place where thoughts and feelings are expressed freely and deeply. As an example, being able to confide in someone, knowing they won’t gossip or break our confidence or even judge us is “intimate.”
In the Orthodox world, there should be intimacy in spirituality. The most intimate thing a person can do in his or her life is to receive Holy Communion. For us to touch God, and for God to touch us. For us to come to God, in our brokenness and sinfulness, without pride or pretense and lay ourselves at His feet, and to receive Him with humility, but also with hope and with joy. When we are invited to receive Holy Communion, the invitation should be heard in a personal way, “With the fear of God, with faith and with love (insert your name) draw near.” The invitation is not qualified with “come in your brokenness, come in repentance, come with a donation,” or with anything else other than “come with fear, faith and love.” God has no agenda in offering this invitation, we have no agenda in answering it. What is needed for this intimate encounter is contentment—we have to be content with God, we have to be content with ourselves, we have to believe that God is content with us. If we are not content with God, if we are not content with ourselves and if we do not believe God is content with us, this encounter might happen, we might still receive Holy Communion, but it will be a transactional encounter, not an intimate one. Of course, anyone can approach for Holy Communion. We don’t require public confession or examination to do so. Unless one engages the priest in the sacrament of confession, there is no way for him to know the disposition of one’s heart, or whether the encounter with God is transactional or intimate.
Regarding confession, this is also an intimate encounter between someone and God in the presence of a priest. In order for this encounter to work, there has to be on the part of the person going to confession, a truthful and transparent confession of sin, without holding things back. There has to be a trust that God can forgive sins. There has to be a trust in the priest that he will guide appropriately, not repeat what is said and will not judge. On the part of the priest, there must be empathy, compassion, kindness, no judgment, no repeating of what is heard, and no thinking less of a person regardless of what they share. The only way confession works is if priest and penitent have a sense of contentment with one another, no agenda.
Prayer is an act of personal and private interaction with God. It should also be intimate. The concept of intimacy, as you are hopefully seeing, is based on contentment and not agenda. Part of the reason prayer is so challenging is that when we go to God in prayer, we are often asking for a desired outcome, so there is an agenda, and when we don’t get the desired outcome, there is a disappointment, which is opposite of contentment. The ideal prayer is just being in the presence of God, for us to be with God, and for God to be with us. There is in image depicted in the book “Beginning to Pray” by Archbishop Anthony Bloom which has always stayed with me. It is the image of someone sitting in front of an icon of Christ, in a dark room, with a candle burning in front of the icon, and for one to look at Christ, and for Christ to look back and him, and for there to be happiness and contentment in that moment. Imagine prayer as having a moment of peace, joy and contentment with Christ. This cannot happen when there is an agenda. If there is any agenda, it would be submitting ourselves to the agenda of the Lord, with the four most difficult words of prayer, “Thy will be done.”
Let’s look at interpersonal intimacy. For two people to have a deep conversation. To confide fears and doubts. To offer support, encouragement and empathy. To feel okay in one’s skin, with one’s brokenness. To not have to walk on eggshells or feel belittled or less than. This is why intimacy doesn’t work in many relationships, such as a relationship with a boss, or with the clerk at the store. Intimacy is either risky (with the boss, who has the power to fire someone), or not appropriate (with the clerk, it is a transaction, the desire goal of the interaction is a transaction). The problem for us in this world is we are having transactional relationships with everyone, and intimacy with hardly anyone, and this is because we are losing our concept of contentment. And a big reason for that is our phones.
We are having a harder time praying, sitting still in church, or taking in a beautiful scene like a sunset, because the desire for the phone gnaws at our minds almost constantly. I’ve been to restaurants with my family and we see people either with their families, or a young couple out on a date, and they have their phones out. There is little conversation, and there can’t be any intimacy under circumstances like these. Going briefly to the dating circle, if a young couple who are dating watches a sunset together, and all they do is sit and hold hands and appreciate something beautiful, there is something very intimate about that. When one has an agenda and hopes this scene leads to other things, then the moment watching sunset is no longer intimate, but a transaction that leads to another transaction.
Earlier in this study, we wrote how love is patient and kind and doesn’t insist on its own way. Intimacy is organic, it cannot be forced, or demanded, or required. The whole concept of intimacy is based on contentment. Because we live in a world of instant gratification, we are losing patience. Because so much of our lives are dominated by the phone, we are losing focus. Because we are always wanting more, and nothing ever seems to be enough, we are losing our concept of contentment. And because of this, we are losing our ability to be intimate—with God in prayer, with one another in conversation, with ourselves and the ability to sit (alone or with someone else) and enjoy the beauty of nature.
In St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy (6:6-8), he writes, There is great gain in godliness with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content. If we rewrite these verses in the modern context, how does verse 8 read for us: But if we have (fill in the blank), with these we shall be content. In the world, it seems like verse 8 should read we are not content with anything, because once we acquire something, we want to acquire something more. Indeed we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world, except for our faith and our record of serving others. This is why we need to be faithful and generous, and these grow from a foundation of contentment.
Lord, thank You for the gift of life, of faith, of hope, of salvation. Help me to find contentment in the blessings I have, and calm the tendency to be insatiable when it comes to goals that are material in nature. Help me to come to a sense of contentment, so that I may build an intimate relationship with You, appreciate the beauty of Your creation, and build intimate relationships with other people, so that I interact with love, not just with transaction. Amen.
Intimacy is based on contentment. We all could stand to have more of both, with God and with one another.
