These are words that I’ve heard different variants of time and time again, in different permutations and combinations across engagement sessions and times – and I think it is fascinating how they take their effect and how we may create that safe space for others even as we receive it for ourselves.

Most recently, I had the chance to explore this and likely will continue to have the chance to explore this in an Alpha session in a local church.

I recall during our first session, one man was asked to describe himself with an adjective, and he proceeded to choose “kind” as his preferred choice; when asked why, he started to explain how he volunteered in church, how he was very “giving” with his time, his money, his energy. He had spoken for about two minutes, either perhaps thinking that he had come off as a saint or perhaps compelled by the pressure of the moment to provide a response that was a fitting rationalization to his choice, but I remember coming to a conclusion internally:

There is a difference between what a person may say and how others may see them.

We could extend that conclusion a little bit, but I’ll just leave it at that.

I do find it interesting, though – because if you think about it, pretty much all of us have opinions about ourselves and how we are to the world; we are brave, we are kind, we are good-looking, amazing, wonderful…

Yet as an expressed opinion, it exists in parallel in a world with our privately held opinions about ourselves, the opinions of others, the capital T truth, and otherwise – and in a way, if we were to treat life and social dynamics as part of a musical instrument with keys, frets, timbres, tones, and (for the more modern-minded?) parameter knobs that adjust infinitely in simultaneous and dynamic causality.

Simply because I say that I am strong, I say that I am kind, amazing, talented, that I demonstrate qualities that make me different, unique, better than others… Does any of that make me any of those things in the immediate moment of articulation? Maybe not. Can it contribute towards that? Maybe in the longer term, though it would pale in response to actually taking action (Arendtian sense and others) to make those things so.

Either way, the message is this:

I did not take his words at face value.

Does that mean that the safe space is gone? Am I judging him, crucifying him, or any number of other things?

I suppose I can honestly say I am doing a bit of judging but not expressing it – but I would also say that firstly, I consider that inevitable, and secondly, I recognize that the same thing can happen to me – but also that if we treat a safe space in the best of senses as a place where judgment does not exist, that would be out of kilter with the entire nature of reality; in attempting to provide a constructed and false image of “safety” based on this false definition, I would ultimately receive it myself and discredit my own experience.

But I suppose this provides an opportunity to showcase a bit of my own thinking:

I assume that I will be judged in this world, and I assume that the world will not have compassion unless I prove myself. This is an enduring characteristic of my personality, both for the better and for the worse.

I assume that people will distinguish between what I say and what I do, and that whatever safe spaces I may be in, these are not spaces in which I will not be judged, but rather places where, by social courtesy or otherwise, people may either not say what they truly think (I would hope not), or perhaps even better, judgment can coexist with compassion without flattening out the needed part of the experience – to discover in running on the edge of desire its object, built on a true facing of the shadow, whatever it may be.

So I will not disavow my judgment – it will always be there in the background – a “safe space” cannot be operationally defined as a place without judgment, and therefore, if the “safe space” is to have any meaning or if I am to have what I give, the parameters that define it as safe must be different.

My provisional answer is this:

A safe space is not a place where judgment does not exist – it is a place where people commit not to harm one another, or at least where any harms we sustain should redound to a higher good.

If I should bear the responsibility of creating a “safe” environment for others, I may judge them, but I will not choose to harm them; I may evaluate people deeply, probing their words, and forming countless predictions about them – but I will listen, in aiming to provide the brightest enlightenment that I can, with the little that I have; in committing to live towards others in this aspect, I expect that others will do the same – yet if they differ, it does not fundamentally change what I will do.

Above all, for both others and for myself, I will assume that people can change and improve, not merely remain fixed in a closed and unchanging image – even as I hope the best for myself, yet consciously choose not to predetermine what others can or will experience, in remembering that each of us is on a different part of an ongoing journey.