Reaching into the depths and pouring out

"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 for 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 powerless, not to be different but 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."--Henri Nouwen, "Out of Solitude", pp. 42-43

How might God be calling us to empty ourselves in order that we might be filled with him? This is the question I find myself asking my own heart deep within me. How might I empty myself, allow myself to be poured out so that God might pour in his extravagant grace and that grace might spill out of my own soul and bleed into the souls of others? How might I step out of the way, deconstruct and tear down the barriers of my own brokenness so that I might participate in the compassion that God has for his people and that we might be part of forming a new community together.

It is in the still moments, the silent moments of perching on a green coverlet with the sound of a dripping faucet that I wonder, question, and plead with God to allow me to keep coming to him and laying my own brokenness at his feet. It is this plea that I cry out tonight and it is this plea that I cry not only for my own heart, but a cry that together we might be united in facing towards God allowing his healing to permeate us, his compassion to mend the tears, and his grace to flow in, around, and through us so that others see not ourselves, but God.

Good night my friends. Shalom.