Day 140f: Another Grace-full Giving … (September 16, 2019)
I then came across the roadside C & S Big Orange Market, where manager Mahmoud joyfully offers me a gentle smile, some warm encouragement, and a bit of delicious sustenance to boot …
“To care means first of all to empty our own cup and to allow the other to come close to us. It means to take away the many barriers which prevent us from entering into communion with the other. When we dare to care, then we discover that nothing human is foreign to us, but that all the same hatred and love and cruelty and compassion and fear and joy can be found in our own hearts as well. When we dare to care, we have to confess that when others kill, I could have killed too – and indeed probably already have. Similarly, I know that when others heal, I could have healed too. And when others give life or kindness or mercy, I could well have done the same. And it is then that we can be present to the soldier who kills, to the policeman who pesters, to the young man who plays as if his life and indeed the lives of others have no end, and to the old man who stopped playing entirely – oddly out of fear for death. By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness, we can participate in the care of the Divine Father who came, not to the powerful but to the powerless, not to be different but to connect in oneness, not to take our pain away but to willingly share its burdens. Through this participation – by acting as a willing agent of the On High – we can open our hearts to each other and thereby rebuild a new & more all-encompassing Community.” ~ inspired by Henri Nouwen
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