Reading: Part Two — Lifting the Cup
We lift the cup of life, to affirm our life together and celebrate it as a gift from God.
The beautiful, poignant, and compassionate sharing among those gathered here has already demonstrated that we are, as Henri writes, willing to “…lift up our cup in a fearless gesture, proclaiming that we will support each other in our common journey…” In this virtual space we are already creating community. This week Henri challenges us to grow in our understanding of the nature of community and its importance to the spiritual life using three memorable examples.
1. According to Henri, “Community is a fellowship of people who do not hide their joys and sorrows but make them visible to each other in a gesture of hope.” And what does community look like? He uses the example of “one big mosaic portraying the face of Christ…(where) each little stone is indispensable and makes a unique contribution to the glory of God.”
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Henri reminds us, “…when we live our life for others we not only claim our individuality but also proclaim our unique place in the mosaic of the human family.” Then he asks a probing question: “Do we have a circle of worthy friends where we feel safe enough to be intimately known and called to an always greater maturity?” Henri concludes, “We need community, a community in which confession and celebration are always present together. We have to be willing to let others know us if we want them to celebrate life with us.”
In this section you might review Henri’s words and the mosaic as they may apply to your life experience. Look at the groups to which you belong, and consider which of them are communities as described here. Reflect on the times when you have lifted the cup of your life with those communities and the blessings that you have received. Looking ahead, are you prepared to trust in the love of God and “…willing to let others know us” so that true community can result? What steps have you taken or can you take to build community in you life?
2. Henri illustrates the power of community by telling the wonderful story of lunch with Trevor. According to Henri, “Trevor’s toast radically changed the mood in the Golden Room…. Trevor did what nobody else could have done. He transformed a group of strangers into a community of love by his simple, unself-conscious blessing.”
You might want to think about the players in this story — Henri, the hospital chaplain, the hospital staff, Trevor, and each of us as the readers. How do the various players view and experience community? What do we learn about them, and ourselves, as the story unfolds? Did you develop any new insights about community?
3. Henri concludes his reflection on “Lifting the Cup” with the example of Bill’s Life Story Book. Henri writes of Bill, “Over the years he has created a life worth living.” Henri describes the celebration of Bill’s life that accompanied the completion of Bill’s book. He asks us to look at our own lives and dare to say, “I am grateful for all that has happened to me and led me to this moment.” Moreover, he challenges us to “take all we have ever lived and bring it to the present moment as a gift for others, a gift to celebrate.”
To begin you reflection you could consider the celebration of Bill’s Life Story Book. Then take a look at your life experience. How have you created a life worth living? Reflect on your life–the joys and the sorrows–and lift it up, ponder it, and find cause for celebration and gratitude.
Once again, the reading this week is deceptively simple and rich in meaning. The three topics just discussed are merely suggested reflections for your consideration. We are interested in your comments on these suggestions or something that touched you. Of course, you are also welcome to follow along silently. We are blessed by your presence.
May the Lord give you peace.
Ray
I want to lift the cup but do not have the strength to do it myself. It takes grace from the God who was lifted up on the Cross. I see the lifting as the act of courage to put myself out there for another. When I bless another, I am blessed. Henri puts it so clearly:
“But each time we dare to step beyond our fear, to be vulnerable, and lift our cup, our own and other people’s lives will blossom in unexpected ways. Then we too will find the strength to drink our cup and drink it to the bottom.”
This has been a wonderful book to share together, also as my first online experience. I have been a silent participant but nonetheless, deeply involved. Some days I silently told God that I didn’t think I could drink this cup any longer – but as I sit silently each morning, with God – today, say yes, I am drinking this cup – learning to drink fully, deeply, authentically – gratefully. The anguished sorows & surprising joys. Is a rich blessing to be online together as a Community in this manner. Thank-you so much!
I am pondering the quote from our reading, “We have to be willing to let others know us if we want them to celebrate life with us.” I struggle with being a part of a faith community. My reluctance (to join in) is rooted from childhood struggles and other life events. The fear of being rejected or unwanted weighs heavily and shadows my efforts to join in group fellowships. So here I am trying to be “willing”. A friend suggested the idea of “safe risks” and my belonging to this Book Study is my first “safe risk”! Looking at Trevor’s story, I applaud his courage to be himself . Perhaps Henri’s presence and unconditional friendship enabled the spontaneous singing of the happiness song to be a “safe risk”. Look at the blessings that keep flowing from that event…not just at that moment around the table but for all of us and everyone who reads that story.
It is just amazing, how we all feel connected to each other through this book. For some reason I always see a smiling face when I open Henri’s daily meditations or come to our discussion group. I do not consider myself any special, but in some respects as I read your contributions and look at the cup of my life, it still is a cup of sorrows and joys, but for whatever reason, I always had a community. I always had group of friends to share my life with. I am one of the 5 children and we had no choice but be friends to each other as our parents did not allow us to bring friends home. My mother had no friends. She was a reader and as it was we were five, who wanted to look after another child. So we 5 were and still are very close to each other. Later when I moved to UK, I would ask God to provide me a community and I met some wonderful people, who deeply cared for me as I was single. Most of my friends were happy to come and spend time with me. I came to Canada after marriage and where we first lived, my close 5 neighbors were the nicest people. I never learned to drive, so when my husband was away, someone was always there to take me wherever I needed to go. For some reason I was happy to have all of them in my home, but they never communicated with each other once they left my home. So you can say I have always been able to create a community around me by opening my home and always willing to help need be. Taking care of my neighbors homes, gardens, whatever.
This was simply to help me grow. God knows what He is doing. We have no family here, yet I have the biggest family here. I also have a wonderful Christian community, where when we study the bible we also share our joys and sorrow. Every one listens and every one prays with the person in sorrow, every week. It happens before we read and discuss the bible. 4 times a years we have a get together in our home or in the home of our friend, Phyllis. At that time, we just eat and share our lives. Joys and sorrows around the family, sickness in the family. We almost do it around some one’s birthday. Our Phyllis was 90, last Monday. I did the celebration like we do it in our L’Arche gatherings. We had a candle lit and we passed it around and talked about what Phyllis had contributed to our lives. It took us an hour or so at least. She had no idea how much she was loved and what she meant to each one of us.
Phyllis has had a very hard life, her husband left when her 2 daughters were 9 and 12 yrs. old. She had to find ways to bring up her daughters, she had not adjusted to that loss when 6 months later her only brother died in a boating accident and after another 6 months, all of her brother’s family apart from one daughter who was staying that weekend with Phyllis was killed in a highway accident. Her mother moved in with her and Phyllis now had 3 children to bring up. She will tell you how her mother’s faith and slowly building up her trust, she did it. Always went to Church, even when she felt empty. Got involved with the OSL prayer Ministry, that was 40 years ago. I met her when my husband developed Hyper-thyroid problems, when I wanted such a group and saw it in the paper that prayers for healing will be available at her Church and that is 28 years ago. She is more of mother to me than my own mother ever was. Phyllis showed us how to forgive, how to trust God no matter what and always be thankful for the good and bad. That is when I learned how to talk to the Lord and no matter what has happened in our lives, my husband and I can give to the Lord our burdens. Before Supper we lift the daily cup of joy and sorrow to the Lord and ask Him to bless it and continue to show us the way.
We spent 9 yrs. back and forth to Ottawa when our son was going through a painful divorce and our granddaughter was only 20 months old. Now she is 11yrs. old. He feels God has been very cruel to him, he would have liked to have full custody of his daughter, but it is 50%. Our X daughter-in-law is not a loving caring mother. She is very self-centered. So his grief is with God and my husband and I are very prayer oriented. He has become an atheist, there is no God. Well, we never prayed if he was at the table, we respected him. But for some reason, he has completely cut himself off from both of us and his only sister. He lives in this city and we have no idea where. Other people have seen him and spoken to him and our friends know about it so we know he is all right. Our bible study group prays for him, our OSL group prays for him. Since we have the same physician she tells me he is fine and that is all. The why of it is known to the Lord? It is a big cup of sorrow. We have his cell # and we always leave messages for him if some stray letter arrives and I send him an email every week. We never hear, but I do know he has read the email. Last time I saw him was 7 months ago when I was going to the Emergency with abdominal pains and it was umbilical carsnated hernia. Having said all this, I have to say that we both have a strange PEACE, we call it the peace which passes all understanding. Somehow we both feel, he has to sort out certain things and when he is at Peace, our Prodigal son will return. I am surrounded by a community who prays for us and for him and our granddaughter. We both do not feel we need to hire a detective to find out where exactly he is living or even working. Every week the Lord send us a person who has spoken to him seen him. I know my Redeemer liveth!
I talk to all cats and dogs in the neighborhood and little children in my neighborhood know where to come for summer berries. All this and all what has happened in the past has only brought me closer to the Lord and the cup of life is a cup of Joy because we have loving caring neighbors and our prayer group and bible study group and many priests who enjoy Indian food at me table. Life is rich. God bless you all as you are my on-line community and your contributions enrich my prayers for you and your lives bring joy and sorrow, which I take it to the Lord daily.
4 years ago today, my husband was held up with a gun at his head, wallet stolen and finally 2 young people fled in his car. They were caught within an hour. I did not know that evening that Henri’s books would become part of my healing and a deeper phase of my relationship with God. With many other traumatic events over the next few months, I found a God who had been waiting for me. Next I found ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son”. So 2 years after the robbery I sought restorative justice with one of the young men and his family. God was present for all of us.
I know that God’s gifts have let me turn sorrow into joy. I know about compassion being shared. The young man and his family and I shared it with each other. We weren’t different. We showed each other the compassion that God grants all of us and we smiled and also laughed through tears.
My husband later met him and his mother and the healing for him was a gift.
I would not have thought 4 years ago that I would find gratitude in that situation. Lifting the cup does have sadness and sorrow but it is life changing when we choose to seek and find where God would have us be.
I am asking for this group’s prayers as my husband was already struggling with doubt, shame and fear prior to the incident. I pray that he will open his hand to God’s outstretched hands and accept forgiveness and healing and then be able to lift the cup.
I have to confess that I am still struggling with the notion of bringing ALL my life, warts and all, and raising it in front of others. I still feel trapped in that sense of guilt that withholds me from sharing it with others, maybe I have not placed the trust in my community that it deserves? I can certainly acknowledge that I am grateful for ALL that has happened to me and led me to this moment; I know that my whole person is informed by my whole life experience. It really resonated with me when I heard a priest once say that our real holiness is to be found when we go deeper into ourselves, even into our sin. However, the notion of exposing this to a wider group is frankly frightening. I am greatly encouraged by so many here who have had the courage to lift their lives for others – this is truly sacramental. I pray for the courage to do this more frequently – for the benefit of a deepening of my community life.
Phil,
In the reading for next week Henri reflects and comments on the challenge of sharing our cup with others and you will see that he cautions that we do this with care and not with everyone we know or meet but only with “…loving and caring friends with whom we can speak from the depth of our heart.”
Ray
Ray and Phil,
Just what I needed to read as this week ends. In the bible study I lead at the Assisted Living Facility, we have been on a path which has ended us in a challenging place. We have read the stories of people in the Hebrew Bible; we have read the stories of people in the New Testament. We have talked about some of the stories of how this unusual facility got started and of the family who built it in 1921. I am now writing about this whole experience, and where we have landed is at a place to add our own stories to the mix. I gave the ladies a choice between continuing to do what they do anyway which is talk to me informally about their lives, or telling our stories in our group. We’ve been together for over a year; they have chosen the group. We begin this Wednesday. The questions I am posing are: Where did I come from? What did I want? What did I get? What did I lose?
I’m a nervous wreck about the whole thing. Phil, I share your fears; Ray, thank you for Nouwen’s words of caution.
Keep me in your prayers.
Dean
Phil and Dean,
I would encourage you to reflect on what Henri writes on p. 107 in the reading next week and let it speak to your heart. I know that for me, there have been times that I have been able to share important things about my life experience (which includes marriage at age 21, five children, divorce, counseling, celebrating nine years without alcohol this month, annulment, remarriage to the love of my life, and three grandsons with a fourth on the way) and my spiritual journey in a way that is a celebration of God’s love and forgiveness. Are there things for which I am deeply sorry? Yes. Can I express that regret and sorrow and share my experience of God’s forgiveness with others? Certainly. Have I received gifts from God as I continue on my journey? Absolutely. If you open your heart to the Spirit, he will guide you on the right path and you will know what and how much to share.
May the Lord give you peace.
Ray
Andrew,
Thank you so much for your observations about our creating community just by being in the world in small, honest, caring ways. If I tell a woman in line that I like her dress, it often brings out a smile that warms my day. Those small, small things that I, at least, can so often neglect, are so very important. It’s all about connecting our selves with each other self we meet today. Just touching in some way.
I have led a bible study at an assisted living facility for nearly a year and a half now, and the miracle of the community that the “bible ladies” and I have created is overwhelming. God is present in every minute of our time together. I often go in early so I can have breakfast with everyone and just hang out and visit. Most of the women are in their nineties. I lived at that home for eight months after a bad fall and with some serious neurological problems, so I am something more than a “volunteer” coming in from outside. I started the group when I lived there, mostly to hang on to my sanity, and it just grew itself into something spectacular. When I moved to my own place last October, we all decided we just weren’t willing to quit.
Who knows what makes community in that situation–a little of everything, I guess. There ‘s the bible, and the ladies, and me, and the old home that houses this place, and the history of that house, and just on and on. It has all created a space where community could happen to us, much like grace just happens to us if we show up and do a little work.
I have always been a loner and today I probably still mostly am, but what I try to do, Andrew, is just what you were describing–create and belong to a community with every single contact I have with another person. What you did in that check-out line created a community of two, right on the spot.
This section really spoke to me, especially on community. Thank you Ray, Diane, and Andrew for sharing your posts. Much of what you have written, I was thinking or feeling also. I do not have a specific community where I feel that sense of belonging and sharing. I do feel community at Mass, especially during the Eucharist- knowing we are closely connected through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. I like the idea of forming community in everyday living with those we come into contact with. And I suppose that would start with my family, who I often am at odds with. Lord, give me the patience, wisdom, charity, grace to see your face in all I meet.
I am simply in awe of the open, sensitive, and spirit-filled reflections that have been shared thus far during our journey together. Each of you has brought so much of your sorrow and your joy–your true selves–to our worldwide community and it has been a blessing to us all.
Henri cites this as an important question: “Do we have a circle of trustworthy friends where we feel safe enough to be intimately known and called to an always greater maturity?” While I would not suggest that a book discussion can substitute for that circle of trustworthy friends, I can attest that the acceptance and welcome that I have experienced in this discussion and the other Nouwen book discussions in which I have participated gives me a safe and welcoming place to practice sharing and has immeasurably contributed to my spiritual growth. For that I want to say a heartfelt thank you to each of you whether you have participated actively or in silence.
Henri concludes Part II – Lifting the Cup this way: “But each time we dare to step beyond our fear, to be vulnerable, and lift our cup, our own and other people’s lives will blossom in unexpected ways. Then we too will find the strength to drink our cup and drink it to the bottom.” Each of you has chosen to do just that. I look forward to continuing our journey together.
May the Lord give you peace.
Ray
I also want to thank you Andrew for your comments about community. I literally breathed a sigh of relief and felt a bubble of joy at your comments. The topic of “community” that Henri often reflects and writes about is one that has often caused me pain. For as long as I can remember, I have been striving obsessively about finding a place where I feel like I “belong”. Therapy has shown me that this intense seeking stems from my childhood…being the child of 2 alcoholic parents that physically and/or emotionally abandoned me, always made me feel different than all the “normal” families in my neighborhood. As a grown woman, I had a long history of joining one group or another, including a traumatic 15 years as part of a cult disguised as a church, always searching for my community. After leaving the church/cult, God blessed me by giving me this “cyber-community”…I felt so safe here and over the last few years have participated in many of the book discussions. I believe that God sent me Henri to heal my broken and tired spirit through his writings, daily reflections and this community. But I still am working on the feeling of “not belonging”…maybe this is my cup of sorrow?
Anyway….Andrew, I am actually smiling as I write this at the thought that community has been right under my nose all this time! Neighbors walking their dogs in my neighborhood, where we have lived for over 30 years. Wishing others peace during the Eucharist, taking the time to listen as I run errands in my little town. Since we’ve lived here for so long and I am also a teacher at our town’s middle school, its rare that I don’t run into someone who knows me and wants to chat.
I am actually relieved and feel like an oppressive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This is a breakthrough for me and I am so grateful that God led me to your comments Andrew! Thanks again!
We are all wounded healers.
Peace,
Diane C.
Diane,
My childhood background and search for acceptance and sense of belonging is similar to yours. Interestingly, I was writing my comment about how important these book discussions are to me (see below, 8:16 a.m.) at the same time that yours was submitted saying something nearly identical. For me, that is a reaffirmation that this truly is an online community. And your reinforcement of Andrew’s point that we can find community all around us if we only look for it is something that I need to remind myself daily.
Peace and all good.
Ray
What struck me about Henri’s writing in this section was the fact that his father tried to instill in the children all the table rules of good etiquette. Then, later Trevor very unself-consciously makes a toast and leads everyone in singing “When you’re happy and you know it”. I had that kind of strict father too, though he loved us and others to pieces, he was just kind of a very stern and quiet man. I’ve spent years getting more to Trevor’s kind of way of dealing with life, simply out of survival and self-preservation. My latest experience is with the man who volunteers and directs our community garden. He is very precise and full of rules–very idealistic and organic–about how to garden and what I do can never seem to please him. I try to avoid him in the field so that he can’t have more opportunities to criticize me. For some strange reason, last week he told me he is having MRI’s and various tests and then would be seeing the doctor to see what is wrong. Of course, I want to be careful of his privacy on this and he will need to tell the other volunteers, in his own way, about his health–if he has any serious problems. But I got really fearful that–if he has some health problems–who would direct us and so I’ve been talking to another close friend volunteer about how I feel so criticized and incapable in this volunteer work but at the same time fearful that, at some point, we volunteers may need to assume more responsibility. I can’t tell her why I have these fears, especially now, but am being very vulnerable about my fears of criticism and how I don’t seem to deal with that very well–other volunteers are also faced with the same situation with him–he micro-manages everyone but they just let it all flow off their backs. My friend says everything is going great, harvest is very good and we should just be celebrating all this blessing and I am extremely thankful that she lends me her perspective and strengthens me, doesn’t really judge me, but let’s me see how I tend to be narrowly focusing on negative things instead of positive. And above all, being able to talk to her in an ethical and caring way, has been enabling me to guard against telling volunteers what it really is only the business of our volunteer director to convey himself. This is the kind of community we are growing and bit-by-bit I am overcoming my fears of very strict and commanding men.
When I read the comments made == the sorrows, the agonies, the distresses that people relate — I can see the need to lift those cups and I see the need to find the joy and peace that are also raised. I know that at the moment of elevation I always seem to feel sadness and joy. I now realize that that is God holding me firmly in his loving arms. I thank God daily for helping me find Henri Nouwen. I love the daily Meditations. They seem to make things clearer to me. For years I have tried to understand with my mind just what is God and I have searched and searched for an answer that I could understand , Then I finally realized that I do not have to prove anything. God is there. He loves me. And I love him. That’s all I need to know!!.
“I am grateful for all that has happened to me and led me to this moment.”
I am not sure that “grateful” is the word I would use for the difficulties in my life. What I am grateful for is my ability, with God’s help, to transform whatever happens into something better or else to simply let it go. This may take a little or a lot of time depending on the event. I am reminded of a phrase I read a long time ago: “The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.”
I also like Henri’s analogy of a mosaic that forms the face of Christ. Since the mosaic is immensely large we can only see small parts of it.
“Together in the one mosaic, each little stone is indispensable and makes a unique contribution to the glory of God.” This is important for me to remember when I am feeling useless as I age and my memory begins to falter, and my abilities, both physical and intellectual, begin to diminish. A community is so important at this time of my life. Blessings to all in this special community.
Anna
In response to Ray’s question above: What steps have you taken or can you take to build community in you life?
Ray, this question really struck home. COMMUNITY. Your asking us to reflect on groups we belong to. The concept of COMMUNITY came up recently in one of my groups at my parish. Its a Mens’ Faith Sharing Group, we meet monthly at the parish.
One of our members travels to South America to do missionary work and when he joins us often shares his experiences of things that happen on his trips. He describes poverty, and communal efforts at surviving and sharing resources for the common good. He defined his experiences as finding community in South America, camaraderie with others, love of others, in his work there, very much like Henri describes his living in Toronto at l’arche Daybreak community. He went on to comment that he could always find community on his trips to South America but can never find it here in the city where we live in the USA.
I responded to his share with my own share of how I find community daily here where we live in the USA, unlike his experience here in our same parish. I told the group I find community when the lady in front of me in the cashier’s line does not have enough money for her gallon of milk so I chip in 50 cents for her and offer her a ride home during a brutal February snow storm.
I find community here at home when I encounter people during errands, smile at them, let them pet my dog, and listen to them tell me stories about their dogs or pets and oftentimes, many other things. Sometimes, the most loving thing we can do is to merely listen.
So, I see it as part & parcel of my love walk to represent Jesus by demonstrating Jesus in my daily grind. I feel we all have a responsibility to CREATE and CONTRIBUTE to COMMUNITY wherever we “be” at the moment. Shaking someone’s hand during the sign of peace at Mass is an expression of community and let’s hope that this simple act is not the sole communal act we shared during the week!
I admire people who can go overseas and do missionary work and those opportunities have not been presented to me. However, I find missionary work daily here too. All I have to do is open my eyes and look around, there is work everywhere.
As Saint Francis once said, preach always, but never use words unless absolutely necessary.
Andrew, I loved your comment, it resonated so deep within me. I do not go to church so no longer do I belong to a “religious” community.
As time goes on I have also begun to question how effective all the “charities” really are. How can I as an adult fly over the thousands of homeless and disadvantaged (at considerable expense) to fly over all the abled adults of another country to “do my bit”? People get offended when I ask this, even though it is a legitimate question. (Nelson Mandela said this in “Invictus”and I loved it)
My community begins in my home and radiates out to my suburb and city. Trying to be kind, respectful, considerate and caring are my constant battles, especially when I feel grumpy and tired! There are many times I fail, and fail dismally, but I keep on trying!
Having great faith in the power of prayer I also try to hold all those I meet in “arrow” prayer, but again sometimes in the “busyness”of life I forget!
The cup I drink is often one of aloneness and a total lack of intimate friends. Having tried so often I realise I am not a person people want as a friend, so I have given up on trying. With the sadness of not having friends comes the joy of having God to talk too and often in the silences I hear Him.
Seeing God in all things..especially those right in front of you or in back of you on the check-out line! How true!
I used to imagine myself a missionary as read issues of Maryknoll magazine in High School. But the reality was that life wasn’t my vocation. Now I read the magazine and praise God for these brave persons and pray for them. Yet my mission is right where I am. “Bloom where you are planted.” God has a way of surprising me daily with ways to witness without going too far from home.
Community can be of various types, sizes and individuals. Like the Mosaic of Christ we see at the top of this page.
Andrew,
Thank you so much for your observations about our creating community just by being in the world in small, honest, caring ways. If I tell a woman in line that I like her dress, it often brings out a smile that warms my day. Those small, small things that I, at least, can so often neglect, are so very important. It’s all about connecting our selves with each other self we meet today. Just touching in some way.
I have led a bible study at an assisted living facility for nearly a year and a half now, and the miracle of the community that the “bible ladies” and I have created is overwhelming. God is present in every minute of our time together. I often go in early so I can have breakfast with everyone and just hang out and visit. Most of the women are in their nineties. I lived at that home for eight months after a bad fall and with some serious neurological problems, so I am something more than a “volunteer” coming in from outside. I started the group when I lived there, mostly to hang on to my sanity, and it just grew itself into something spectacular. When I moved to my own place last October, we all decided we just weren’t willing to quit.
Who knows what makes community in that situation–a little of everything, I guess. There ‘s the bible, and the ladies, and me, and the old home that houses this place, and the history of that house, and just on and on. It has all created a space where community could happen to us, much like grace just happens to us if we show up and do a little work.
I have always been a loner and today I probably still mostly am, but what I try to do, Andrew, is just what you were describing–create and belong to a community with every single contact I have with another person. What you did in that check-out line created a community of two, right on the spot.
From Phil
I have come late to this discussion. However, this is my third book and my first comment on the text. The Lord loves a giver- when he finally gets round to it. It is heartening to read the contributions of others. Whilst Henri Nouwen acknowledges our “radical aloneness” and consequent “radical uniqueness”, this sharing points to souls in a similar place in their so human experience: it is good to know we are not alone!
Small beer as it may be, I am a head of a catholic school and have recently experienced great tumult and upset due to a restructuring I sent in motion. As with all things there are things that come out that no-one saw at the outset; things that cause great concern for those involved, not least as it ends up I am the one passing a cup of sorrow to those involved! Many have asked “how can this be so in a Catholic school?”
In many ways, what Henri Nouwen is sharing with me explains this – life cannot be fully expressed without the cup of sorrow; it reveals the cup of joy – a joy that is more spiritually authentic as it is borne from passion, suffering is the refiners fire. It chimes in very coherently with the work of Julian of Norwich which my parish priest has just suggested I read. The very thought that the cup of sorrow is a precursor to the cup of joy is salvific for so many. Maybe even a “manager” like me, whose decisions affect the lives of others and sometimes in ways I did not perceive, can take some comfort in that this is the life that God wants us to participate in; a life that is ours to experience – the lows and the highs. By sharing in this we are experiencing a small part of the love of the Father. Is this where our true joy lies? Thank you Henri for making me think! Reflecting on my life is essential to make sense of all I do. Thanks also to those who contribute here – you make me think in ways I had not considered; what a gift!!
Phil, Aren’t we all “managers” in the sense that you use the word, that is, we all make those decisions that affect the lives of every person around us. I spent over thirty years in classrooms with everything from high schoolers–my meat and bread–to middle-agers coming back with clear purpose, to seniors taking literature classes to enrich their later years. I loved them all; I affected them all, I’m sure not always for the better.
But I want to believe that each of those connections, however brief, whether for good or not so good, was a step out of isolation and into community. Community, in my life, has come in lots of different and unexpected and sometimes unpleasant forms. I believe, no matter what, it’s a good thing.
Your discussion of school issues sure brings back to mind all the times I made decisions that either had unanticipated consequences or about which I worried myself nearly to death in fear that they would. It all shakes out in the wash, I have almost learned. Today, ten years away from those students, I miss them terribly, hear from some of them often, and often from those twenty years back, and see the whole thing in a better light, or at least from a safer distance.
Maybe this aging thing has something to it.
Blessings
The joys and sorrows remain in the cup. How the cup looks to others is different than what the cup contains. It does not matter whether the cup is golden and bejewelled or made of clay. The contents of joy and sorrow remain hidden in the cup.
Once we raise our personal cup up that cup becomes transparent (like the glass of Henri Nouwen’s chalices) and both we and others see the content. Red, the colour of our blood, blood our living life force and sacrificial offering!
It’s obvious from the above comments that many of us are “in touch” with our cup of sorrow. I’m 81 years old and with the help of a Personal Historian am writing my life story. I have been deeply immersed in the writing process for eight months. Sixty years ago I was a student at Notre Dame, I married and raised six children. I have alternately cried and laughed as I look at each period of my life. In raising the children I have survived alcoholism, heroin addiction (one of my daughters was married for a short period to a member of the Charlie Manson gang) attempted suicide, teenage pregnancy and stage four ovarian cancer. Now I hear Henri telling me to raise my cup and thank God for all that has happened to me. Ray, I can do it!
“We lift the cup to life, to affirm our life together and celebrate it as a gift from God. When each of us can hold from our own cup, with its many sorrows and joys, claiming it as our unique life, then too, can we lift it up for others to see and encourage them to lift up their lives as well.”
Amen.
Wonderful, wonderful comments and sharing. For a couple of months I have been struggling with so much sorrow that this book study is so very timely for me.
In my family I now have my mother, father, and my younger brother all in nursing homes no longer able to care for themselves. Over the years, watching their health deteriorate has been heart breaking. Now, my youngest sister who is also ill and me will repair the family home and sell it now that it is empty.
This has been a very long haul over many years, I feel like a chapter is finally closing so that a new door can open up in my life. The study here will help me over the next months as will our shared faith.
Andrew John wrote “I feel like a chapter is finally closing so that a new door can open up in my life”
It sounds like you’re in one of those “perfect storms” when everything is ending and everything is beginning all at once. Good thing they don’t come along too often; mostly we get to inch forward in manageable steps. I’m glad you’re here. Nouwen has carried me through some very rough spots in my 68 years on the planet.
Houses carry so much of ourselves and our lives, don’t they? My father died when I was a senior in high school, and I remember going away to college, knowing Mother was going to sell our log home (built from scratch by my parents and some old folks from the country) that sat on 200 acres of north Georgia woods, and I could feel that door closing behind me, pushing me forward because there was literally not going to be a way back. Adam and Eve had to leave that garden, had to go through that “new door” you talk about, but the necessity, and even the obviously exciting chance at a life, didn’t lessen for me one bit that moment of emptiness and loss. It’s a huge transition. And when Mother died, decades later, the first thing I did was spend a day in Alabama heat packing up her whole apartment. Closing the door firmly on another “house.” Moving forward again.
Maybe that’s the whole journey in a nutshell: loss, packing up, moving on. Not a bad trip at all.
Ms. Robertson: Thanks for your share. The experience you describe which is what I am going through at this time is very bittersweet. One of the hard lessons I have had to pray about & exercise is my relationship with my “baby” sister, 10 years younger than me. When she was an infant I fed her from a bottle and now, since she is in closer proximity to the family home than me, she is handling many things related to Dad, Mom and our brother. She is ill herself and I have to constantly remind myself and pray for the Holy Spirit to guide me with my interactions/communications with her, mostly by phone and email or text message. She can be very non-communicative at times sending 6 word text messages that are frightening or at other times ranting in very extensive emails. Its difficult to remain composed and not react to her negatively, continue to be supportive and remind her continually that all she has to do is say the word she needs help and I will be there (60 miles away, not too far). Also, I try to email her some jokes when I can to try to lighten up the burden for us both a little so that we can stay in relationship. I would hate for this family crisis to drive a wedge between us, I much prefer that it can bring us closer. So, I constantly pray for patience & guidance to do the best thing in every circumstance.
Andrew and Dean, I can relate to your comments about home. Home is where the heart is. Packing away years of memories is never easy. Be sure to retain enough keepsakes to remind you of life’s blessings whiel you lived in the house. I see your heart full of care. May your moving on be blessed.
I am lifting my life every day to know, love and serve God. Maybe going through sorrow and joy while holding my cup of life is why I am at peace most of the time. After over ten years of holding sorrow in my cup and crying to God for help has brought me to where I am now living one day at a time, letting go of yesterday’s guilt. God has forgiven me, I know because I have asked many times. Guilt is bad for the joy God wants for me. When I feel guilt wanting to take me I remember Jesus died for my sins, and I go to God for help to overcome these thoughts.
I owe this virtual community an apology for being completely absent, in fact and in spirit, for several days. I am engaged (not to say obsessed) with a writing project and am just plain neglecting some things that feed me.
So. Maybe my favorite passage from this section is the one you quote, Ray: “We need a community in which confession and celebration are always present together.” I think Henri starts that idea back in the section on Holding the Cup when he writes, “. . . to connect my own vulnerability with the vulnerability of those I live with. And what a joy that is! The joy of belonging, of being part of, of not being different.” And that whole part of the book is really, for me, about the idea of a community of suffering among people who have found the road through the suffering and into joy.
I am a recovering alcoholic and have been part of a community of recovering alcoholics for 28 years and that is exactly the principle on which that community is built–we have suffered, we are willing to expose our wounds in order to embrace others who have suffered and need to know they aren’t the only ones with those darned wounds! We don’t come together to talk about our terrible lives and problems but to embrace the fact that there is healing in simply reaching out a hand to help someone else to heal. My war stories are truly terrible, and of course I thought they were the MOST TERRIBLE, beyond anything anyone could imagine–until I heard the stories others had to tell. Theirs aren’t the most terrible, either. I read an essay once, the year I got sober, written by an anonymous alcoholic which said, basically, we recover from our injuries by telling our stories. I think that’s a lot of what Henri is talking about, being honest, confessing, telling our stories. It’s sure what scripture is all about–very, very human stories about terribly flawed people who God finds a use for every time. In another book, and I can’t remember which one, Henri talks about how much easier it is sometimes to surrender to despair than to accept joy.
I hear friends in meetings say they are grateful to be alcoholics and for a long time I just couldn’t understand that. Grateful to be sober, maybe just, but not grateful to be an alcoholic in the first place. Today I don’t think there’s anything in my life for which I am more grateful. Being an alcoholic, having that awful woundedness in my soul
is the very thing that allows me to have a shot at wholeness, to have a chance of even understanding the idea of community, to be able, like Mary and Elizabeth, to wait together with others in expectation that something wonderful is about to happen.
Just want to respond to material in last week’s post. We know Carol from other book studies and we know the pain she suffers because of her son’s illness and that her husband has a different idea of what it means to be in a loving relationship.
My suffering has been from chronic illness which I have had for years. After I decided I wanted to keep on living, the next question I had was, “Why me?” I read lots of books, “When Bad things Happen to Good People,” Harold Kushner, being a useful one. There is really no good answer to “Why me?” and I found it really caused me to sink into self pity. Self pity and viewing oneself as a victim even when terrible things have happened and are happening just makes us feel worse and it makes others avoid us. God doesn’t owe us anything, and if we were repayed as our sins deserve, we would be getting “nada.” We can’t push God around by praying for healing and then being mad when He doesn’t deliver.
What worked for me was asking God to show me signs of his love and signs of Himself. Then I worked consciously to notice these things. Bad, in fact HORRIBLE things are always there, but the good is right beside it. As Lata described the wonderful smiles from her great nephew or maybe it’s caregivers who offer a small glimpse into the heart of God. Those are the things I started to pay more attention to than all the reasons I had to feel terrible. When I got more in tune with God’s signs of himself, eventually one time when I was calling out to God to help me, He showed me a vision of Himself. I will forever have that vision as a confirmation that even in the middle of my suffering, Jesus chose to come back for me.
When I see signs of God around – in my little dog, for example, I ask myself, “What does it mean that God made something so soft when I touch it, something so inquisitive, something so loyal?” What was a loving God thinking when he created ___________?
Equally important, I used professionals around me to gain health – counsellors, doctors and Pastors. I also changed friends to people who forced me to be more healthy and who were more positive.
I’ve already had some dark days with my Cancer here, but God sends the most wonderful things in the midst of my physical suffering. Jesus loves me, this I know. Marianne
Marianne: I was touched by your comment about your dog. A few years ago, I would not have understood that comment. I was raised in cities and my father believed that dogs needed to be on farms where they could run free. Thus, very late in my life, my Dad is now 89 and I am 62, a little 6 week old puppy was presented to me, by, I believe, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I was living in the mountains on the West Virginia, Western Maryland state line. Due to the elevation, it was an incredibly brutal winter and finally in March a brief respite of sun happened on one day where I had to travel to attend a meeting for Habitat for Humanity as I was a board member with this group.
The meeting was 35 miles from my home, so, I lined up some other errands en route, one of which was to stop at a power equipment shop to get a replacement part for my ailing snow-blower. As I approached the entrance to the equipment shop, a little 6 week old puppy greeted me at the door. We started playing with each other and as I discussed my snow blower with the shop manager he asked me if I wanted the puppy. I said no, that’s your dog and its really cool, but, it belongs to you. He went on to explain that he had bred a litter and had the mother at home and needed to find a home for the puppy. Long story short, I did not get the part for my snow-blower, but, put the puppy in a cardboard box on the front seat of my car and we have been together ever since.
This dog has been a miracle in my life. Wherever we go together, people respond to her, want to pet her and she is a very loveable being. My wife says that our dog brings joy to people wherever we go. Ponder on that, bringing people JOY wherever we go. Many people cannot do that, yet, this little dog does and we go into some rough urban neighborhoods where people who are struggling get a little bit of love and a little respite from their circumstances through the vessel of this little dog.
We did not know when we brought this dog into our life that she would be so miraculous. I am grateful that at the moment of decision, I believe I was guided by the Holy Spirit to set aside all the tapes of inculcation about dogs from my father and move forward with my decision. I do remember praying while I was in the shop playing with the dog for about a half an hour while I was trying to decide.
Marianne,
Animals are essential. My dear cat, Isaac, is my little anchor in the world at the moment. He hangs with me. And, during a particularly awful period several years ago, five llamas lived in my backyard and allowed me to sit with them and call them mine. They were with me for ten years. I remember curling up, in layers and layers of clothes, in the dead of winter, in the barn with those creatures, listening to their sounds, smelling hay and stalls that needed mucking and cold animals, and feeling safe. Held fast.
You and your little dog are gifts from God to each other. And the real miracle for me has been just what you talk about–noticing those gifts. I can take a breath and feel the deep reality of God’s presence when I’m folding warm towels out of the dryer or glancing at the photographs of my mother that hang on my wall, or even washing a dish. God really is everywhere if I just stay awake. Jesus says it, “Stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come. . .”
Some said, “Darkness is the absence of light.” A speck of light can easily slip under the door to enter a dark space. Your comments affirm for me that I need to use my “Third eye” to see goodness in my daily life. The bad and ugly have their way of overshadowing the good. Just to “Stop and smell the roses or the coffee!”
I think in Part Two the most profound statement for me was when Henri Nouwen said “[w]hen we lift the cup of our life and share with one another our sufferings and joys in mutual vulnerability, the new covenant can become visible among us.” I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the notion of “the cup,” but I think I am starting to get what Henri Nouwen is trying to tell us. And this statement brought me closer to the concepts he is trying to get across.
Our culture and society, and maybe it is just basic human nature, focuses overwhelmingly on the positives and successes. We tend to limit our sharing and interactions with others based upon our successes and the knowledge we have (or that we think we have!), and rarely share our failures and sufferings. To share our failures and sufferings makes us vulnerable, and there is a natural reaction against doing so. But reflecting on my interactions with others, you truly don’t enter into that level of “community” described by Henri Nouwen until you genuinely share not only the joys, but your sufferings with others as well. You must be ready to share not only the successes, your knowledge, and power, but your failures, your weaknesses, and your fears. Putting yourself “out there” when working with others, making yourself vulnerable, strengthens your relationships with others, builds trust with others, and builds community.
I for one gained a lot from Part Two. Looking forward to Part Three!!
Charles,
I appreciate your comment about how our society leads us to focus on the positives, our successes, rather than on our entire lives.
Henri Nouwen addresses this worldly tendency in his book In the Name of Jesus where he writes (in one of my favorite quotes), “The great message we have to carry, as ministers of God’s word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of human life.”
And how do we carry that message? By lifting our cup–our sorrows and our joys–for all to see and celebrating the life that we have received as a gift from God to be shared with each other.
Peace and all good.
Ray
“I am grateful for all that has happened to me and led me to this moment.”
This was my favorite part of the book. After a personal trauma 5 years ago, I set out to change my life into one worth living. At the start of the journey, my counselor told me I would one day be grateful for the pain that brought me to the point in which I was willing to change. At the time, I never thought I could be grateful for those unwanted, unwelcome, painful events. Now, 5 years later, I can say that I am truly grateful for every trauma, every bit of pain and loss, for without it, I would not have had the motivation or courage to die to the superficial, spiritually empty life I was leading and awaken to the joy that is only possible through spiritual connection with God and the people he has placed in my life.
Marsha, one thing I like about these book studies is that everyone picks up on some different ideas, things I either missed or overlooked at the time. It is kind of like filling in that mosaic Henri Nouwen spoke of in Part Two. Anyway, I like the part you quoted. I can relate to what you are saying. I also experienced some rather traumatic life experiences, fortunately not health related, but devastating nonetheless. It sounds like you have a similar attitude as I do, that as traumatic as the events may have been, I would not change anything if I could do it all over again, as I would not have the blessings that rose out of the ashes.