I can make the space around me safe by putting very tight controls on it. People can only come into it if they obey my rules.
It’s a very different thing to want to make the space around me safe for others. It’s much harder than laying down rules that make the space around me safe for me. I think there are people want to create safe space for others but get derrailed for various reasons. Probably because they have mistaken beliefs about others, or because it violates their belief system to make safe space at all.
Sometimes I think it simply takes more effort than anticipated to create safe space for others. If I am are trying to do something nice for another person, then it’s more effort than I expected, and I get tired and frustrated, the other person might pick up that I am upset with them. Then at that point all hope of the space being safe is gone. At least until we’ve all got some rest.
Anyway it is huge for me when a person is a safe space. When they are intentionally validating rather than (probably unintentionally) invalidating. When making the space around them safe for me is more important to them than putting in tight controls to keep it safe for them.
That’s why it was very significant for me 21 years ago, when I was studying the gospel of Matthew in BSF, to come across a verse which, to me, very clearly said “Jesus is safe!”. The verse was
“A battered reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not extinguish, until he leads justice to victory” (Matthew 12:20, Amplified Bible)
I’ve written here and here about how I don’t believe John 14:6 is a litmus test; this however was a litmus test that Matthew picked up from the Old Testament. There’s a prophecy in the Old Testament to the effect: “How can we tell if someone is God’s chosen servant? Because he will do these things!”
Matthew applies it to Jesus and one of the tests in it is, Jesus is safe i.e. “A battered reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not extinguish“
I thought that was awesome.
Why do I care about this topic? Maybe because within a month or two of studying that verse I had some serious mental health problems and as a result, I ran into the most extreme situation I’ve encountered of ‘tight controls around a person that keep them safe’.
Because of how I had behaved while ill, the specific leader of that local group banned me from attending her group ever again as long as she was leader. I checked if I could rejoin it 9 months later when I was much healthier again but it was still a definite ‘no’. I was also banned from any communication with the rest of my own group within the larger group. I disappeared without trace or explanation except whatever that leader told them.
There were other similar bans – I was banned from any form of direct communication with one of the church leaders and if I remember correctly I was banned from participating in the church orchestra for a while. To be fair (?) I was not actually banned from attending church and when I was there the specific restrictions placed only on me (presumably) were not visible to others: I didn’t have to wear a visible sign like David Copperfield saying “He bites!”
Anyway I missed the bible study but was pleased to find a different one, CBS I was allowed to join ( I suppose I hadn’t burned any bridges there – yet!) for the rest of that year.
I still missed BSF because it was special – it had rules like “don’t use commentaries” which I realized had led to better discussions with more original thought and personal application of Bible passages than I found happening at CBS.
I found a different BSF whose leader was willing to let me join as long as I didn’t break BSF rules going forward. It probably helped that structurally this BSF was in a different area than the other one, so it had a different leader’s leader. Now I remember there was more to it than just the local leader, because one day the regional leader actually came have a meeting with me along with the local leader, about some stuff I had (unintentionally) done that implied I thought I had powers way above my pay grade, as it were. (Admittedly, I probably did think that, unintentionally, since that was a symptom of my illness)
In what felt like a karmic twist/irony to me, that leader, a year or two later, became leader of my original BSF group and so she allowed me to return to my own local community where my local friends attended. Not only that but since I was the only person she knew there, she asked if I would help change her overheads for her.
My church bans were lifted, gradually, over time. So eventually, it was all behind me, in one sense. However, it was a lot to go through and it changed me. I kept attending church for a while but eventually stopped. I think to this day I have church and Bible ‘PTSD’. I have a very negative visceral emotional reaction to reading Bible passages or hearing worship music.
I was judged and blamed and controlled by Christians I had trusted, that I thought were ‘my friends’, before, during and after my illness. None of whom actually knew what it was like to go through what I was going through.
I’m not angry with anyone about this today. However I do totally totally understand how unsafe church and Christians can be.