An Art of Making Space

I have come to believe that making room is the truest way we show we care. It doesn’t matter what we are making room for — a person, an idea, a grief, or God — the principle holds. Where there is no inner space, there is no place for anything sacred to enter. Without room, there is no place for a person to be truly welcomed. Without room, there is no place for God to dwell. And without room, there is no place for the quiet, difficult work of transformation to happen either.

So much of what we long for — healing, understanding, acceptance, kindness, compassion, love, forgiveness — these are not things we manufacture through effort alone. They are things we make room for. And making room is itself a kind of labor: sorting through what we’ve accumulated, releasing what no longer serves us, clearing the clutter that has quietly taken up residence in us. It ends, if we let it, in an attitude of welcome.

Scripture has always understood this. When Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, Luke tells us simply that there was no room for them in the inn (Luke 2:7). It’s easy to read past that line, but it carries a warning worth sitting with: the world was busy, full, occupied — and so it had nothing left to offer the very thing it most needed. I wonder how often my own life looks like that inn. Full of good things, worthy things even, but so full that there’s no room left for the one guest who matters most.

There’s a small gesture from Japanese tradition that has stayed with me: the Maneki-neko, the beckoning cat you’ll see in shop windows and by doorways, one paw raised. It’s often mistaken for a simple good-luck charm, but its meaning runs deeper than that. The raised paw isn’t grasping — it’s inviting. A left paw lifted welcomes people, conversation, connection, the opening of a door. A right paw raised beckons prosperity, sustenance, the blessing of a home. Tradition cautions that raising both at once can tip into something closer to grasping — a reminder that what we’re after isn’t seized, but received. The cat doesn’t chase what it wants. It simply makes itself open to it, and waits.

That’s not so different from what contemporary voices mean when they speak of “manifesting,” however overused the word has become. Strip away the marketing, and the instinct underneath it is an old one: what you want room for, you must first make room for. Maya Angelou wrote often about our shared hunger for home — for the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. That home is not only a place we search for. It is also a place we build inside ourselves, by clearing enough space that something, or someone, can finally rest there.

Because here is the truth I keep returning to: two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. If I want grievance, I cannot also hold peace there. If I want distraction, I cannot also hold God there. Making room always means letting something go.

So this week, I’m trying something simple. Left hand open, to welcome. Right hand open, to receive. Not grasping. Just open — the way that small cat has been teaching patient doorways for centuries. Make space. We already know how.

Share