Small Mercies Miércoles! today I'm grateful for... spring!

“What if the events of our history are molding us as a sculptor molds his clay, and it is only in a careful obedience to his molding hands that we can discover our real vocation and become mature people? What if all the unexpected interruptions are in fact invitations to give up old-fashioned and outmoded styles of living and are opening up new unexplored areas of experience? And finally, what if our histories do not prove to be a blind impersonal sequence of events over which we have no control, but rather reveal to us a guiding hand pointing to a personal encounter in which all our hopes and aspirations will reach their fulfillment? Then our life would indeed be different, because then fate becomes opportunity, wounds a warning, and paralysis an invitation to search for deeper sources of vitality.”

~Henri Nouwen in "Reaching Out"

Between recovering from completing the full draft of my book project on Servant of God Father Stanley Rother and traveling to Charlottesville, Virginia, to visit family, I've been remiss in my blog writing.

Don't give up on me. I plan to do better! 

Today is Wednesday, which means it's time to acknowledge Small Mercies in my life--and there have been many.

I'm grateful for... signs of Spring in my backyard, a reminder of God's presence, power, and hope. Make me anew, Lord!

NOTE: ...with thanks to Dan Wakefield's blog on Patheos, who published the Nouwen quote [click here to read blog: "Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out: 25 years of Image"]

co-m-PASSION

I often say to people, “I will pray for you.” But how frequently is my prayer one of pity or sympathy rather than compassion?

My dear friend Pat is fighting brain cancer. She spends most of her days on a recliner chair in her bedroom, and often when people come to visit her, they sit across from her—and, as she describes it, “silently stare” at her. I laugh when she tells me these stories. But when I witness it with my own eyes, it baffles me.

What bothers her most of all, however, is that it is clear to her when people approach her with pity and sympathy rather than compassion. 

“I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s always obvious to me,” Pat says. "The love is different."

For author Henri Nouwen, compassion is at the heart of our prayer for others. Literally meaning to suffer with another, compassion necessarily entails becoming close to the one who suffers. It means opening up our own heart to feel their pain as if it was ours. It means seeing Christ in their suffering eyes. 

“When God became as we are,” Nouwen wrote, “that is, when God allowed all of us to enter into his intimate life, it became possible for us to share in his infinite compassion. In praying for others, I lose myself and become the other, only to be found in the divine love which holds the whole of humanity in a compassionate embrace.”