Fr. Dave's Thoughts - March 8th, 2024

Dear Friends,

This week we will continue by looking at the second part of the second meditation in Henri Nouwen’s book entitled Out of Solitude. Last week we began the second meditation entitled, With Care. This week we will conclude with the second part of that meditation which is entitled Community and Care. Thanks for reading.

“He then took the five loaves and two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing; then he broke the loaves and began handing them to his disciples to distribute among the people. He also shared out the two fish among them all. They ate as much as they wanted… Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.”[i] (Mark 6:32-44)

Out of his solitude Jesus reached out his caring hand to the people in need. In the lonely place his care grew strong and mature. And from there he entered into a healing closeness with his fellow human beings.[ii]

 Community and Care

This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather to share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, “Where can I find a doctor?” When someone is  confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around.

That was also the case two centuries ago in  June 1787 during

the days of deliberation about the Constitution of the United

States. When the discussion did not seem to get anywhere,

Benjamin Franklin proposed to open the sessions with prayer.

But the delegation to the convention rejected the proposal not

because they did not believe in prayer but because they had no

money to pay a chaplain. (S.E. Morrison, The Oxford History of the

American People. New York, 1965, pp. 307-308)

Although it is usually very meaningful to call on outside help, sometimes our referral to others is more a sign of fear to face the pain than a sign to care, and in that case we keep our greatest gift to heal hidden from each other. Every human being has a great, yet often unknown, gift to care, to be compassionate, to become present to the other, to listen, to hear and to receive. If that gift would be set free and made available, miracles could take place. Those who really can receive bread from a stranger and smile in gratitude, can feed many without even realizing it. Those who can sit in silence with their fellow man, not knowing what to say, but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart, can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.

Why is it that we keep that great gift of care so deeply hidden? Why is it that we keep giving [money] without daring to look into the face of the beggar? Why is it that we do not join the lonely eater in the dining hall but look for those we know so well? Why is it that we so seldom knock on a door or grab a phone, just to say hello, just to show that we have been thinking about each other? Why are smiles still so hard to get and words of comfort so difficult to come by? Why is it so hard to express thanks to a teacher, admiration to a student, and appreciation to the men and women who cook, clean, and garden? Why do we keep bypassing each other always on the way to something or someone more important?

Maybe simply because we ourselves are so concerned with being different from the others that we do not even allow ourselves to lay down our heavy armor and come together in mutual vulnerability. Maybe we are so full of our own opinions, ideas, and convictions that we have no space left to listen to the other and learn from him or her.

                       There is a story about a university professor who came to

                      a Zen master to ask him about Zen. Nan-in, the Zen master,

                      served him tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then

                      kept pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he

                      could no longer restrain himself. “It is over-full. No more

                      will go in!” “Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “You are full of your

                      own opinions and speculations. How can I teach you Zen

                      unless you first empty your cup?”

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 hatred and love, cruelty and compassion, fear and joy can be found in our own hearts. When we dare to care, we have to confess that when others kill, I could have killed too. When others torture, I could have done the same. When others heal, I could have healed too. And when others give life, I could have done the same. Then we experience that we can be present to the soldier who kills, to the guard who pesters, to the young man who plays as if life has no end, and to the old man who stopped playing out of fear of death.

By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but to the powerless, not to be different but to be the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation, we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community. [iii]

Conclusion:

When Jesus had received five loaves and two fishes, he returned them to the crowd and there was plenty for all to eat. The gift is born out of receiving. Food came forth out of kinship with the hungry, healing out of compassion, cure out of care. He or she who can cry out with those in need can give without offense. As long as we are occupied and preoccupied with our own desire to do good but are not able to feel the crying need of those who suffer, our help remains hanging somewhere between our minds and our hands and does not descend into the heart where we can care. But in solitude, our heart can slowly take off its many protective device, and can grow so wide and deep that nothing human is strange to it….. Then we can give birth to a new awareness reaching far beyond the boundaries of our human efforts. And then we who, in our fearful narrow-mindedness, were afraid that we would  not have enough food for ourselves, will have to smile. For then we will discover that, after having fed more than five thousand, there were still twelve baskets of bread and fish remaining….[iv]

Next week we will begin the final meditation entitled, In Expectation. It will also come in two parts.

Peace,

Dave

[i] Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN., 1974; 2004, pp. 34.

[ii] Ibid. pp. 35.

[iii] Ibid.  pp. 41-45.

[iv] Ibid. pp. 47-48