DQ 4.1 - Can you drink the cup? (March 15 - )
Henri’s question becomes our question. He says in the Conclusion that we should not expect a reward for drinking the cup he offers. So can you drink the cup, and what does that do to you or for you?
11 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
March 20th, 2007 @ 8:40 am
The wonderful poem was wriiten by William Bell (name under last line) and published in America, a weekly Jesuit publication. It is very special to me- glad others enjoyed it as well.
March 20th, 2007 @ 6:38 am
Susan, thanks for the poem and sharing your talents!
And Connie, I didn’t know you were impatient, thanks!
I like the request from John and James’ mother for a concrete reward of a seat on the right and left for her sons in the kingdom. pg.116, Mt 20:21. Then, Jesus’ response that leads me away from my own darkness, “the seats are not mine to grant and
belong to those whom have been allotted by my Father. pg.118,Mt. 20:23.
Reflecting back over the past few years on God’s blessings and how He has rewarded me–makes me realize how too tightly I have set my boundaries
and aimed too low in my expectations. If I wasn’t shown some of the green pastures of life, how can I be convincing enough to other sheep to follow Jesus?
To me the Bible has a lot in it about being rewarded by God’s love, although not always necessarily by what can be seen.
If I am more prosperous on the way, I trust that He will help me more in the distribution.
I struggle in many ways and at times wrestle with God when I get knocked down, however the straight paths traveled by those before me, have to be considered.
This past Sunday, I was listening to the pouring out by our pastor into the cup at the Altar during communion and the beautiful waterfall sound it made, the sound of acceptance in my Cup being continuously filled came to mind. This Easter is giving me a vision of the Cross like no other, that of nakedness, no one to blame, and the call of being in service to those around me. Thanks again to you for your confessions, Henri, and the Lord for making it possible for us to travel together.
I will hold my Cup higher and drink it with more reverence from now on.
Thanks be to God!
March 18th, 2007 @ 7:48 am
Kelly, I commend you for giving yourself permission to sip rather than drink to the bottom! It makes me wonder whether many people are probably sippers anyway, at various levels.
March 17th, 2007 @ 10:55 am
A few of you have reminded me of the idea that I can sip the cup. While drinking it to the bottom might be living more fully, when I’m not ready for this, sipping is better than not sipping at all. If all I can do is sip, it’s a start and trusting in God will take care of the rest. This is a helpful insight to me which makes the need for control and ability to let go of fears a little easier. Thank you.
March 17th, 2007 @ 8:54 am
Susan: Thank you for sharing the beautiful poem. The words echo my own feelings and experiences. Reading it brought me to tears. This poem really does express for me what ‘drinking the cup’ means…to allow myself to really feel and not become hardened or numb to the ‘emptiness’ that is there unless I am continually connected to God. By day, I can be fooled by the ‘doubtful plentitude’ (i.e. the busyness of this life) until, in the quiet of the night, God ‘tears away my cover’ and I am ’scared..and scraping the bottom of the pot’ until I ‘bow down and confess’ and ask the Lord to ‘pour His Spirit into me’.
The only thing that makes sense to me in this life, besides the love of my husband and daughters, is daily communion with the Trinity. Only through God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit can I ever hope to drink deeply of this cup of life that He has handed me.
When I am having trouble drinking I hope I will remember what Thomas Merton said:
“No despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.”
God bless you all on this St. Patrick’s Day. Everyone is Irish today!
Peace,
Diane
March 17th, 2007 @ 8:21 am
I spent forty years being away from and unassociated with any church. I came back after I realized that I could not handle a family problem alone. I needed more God in my life. Now after ten years, I am beginning to learn what it means to be a Christian. What I am finding is: Every time I drink from the cup, there seems to be more in the cup. I am not sure that I can empty the cup but rather know that I can keep drinking from it. I think I feel good about that.
March 17th, 2007 @ 7:08 am
Connie, thanks so much for talking from the heart. The heart is where God resides, and I know for me, it is still all too easy to live from the head and forget that drinking the cup requires us to feel what’s at the bottom of our heart.
Though I am of Polish ancestry, I will be with Irish family members today.
OK, so generalizations are awful. So what? I will pay attention today to the what the Irish have to teach me about drinking the cup of life, which they do very well!
March 16th, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
Susan and Connie,
I agree with both of you in that my cup is mine to drink because it is my life. I also agree that it has to be joined with Jesus’ cup in order to bring us real joy here on earth and afterwards. No one can drink my cup, and Jesus never said our lives or cups would be easy, but he did say he would love us always and never leave us. In order for me to return that love, I accept my cup and drink from it little by little each day of my life. And I can never completely finish my cup until the day I die.
And yes, I feel that Jesus and his Spirit are definitely here in this group, in our hearts and our efforts in the awesome forms of love and inspiration. With the Father guiding them, what more could we ask for? May he bless us all.
March 16th, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
Henri states, “..we should not expect a reward for drinking the cup he offers..” Yes, I agree, don’t expect to receive a reward in the way that the ‘world’ thinks of a reward: trophies, fame, a new car etc. We are constantly bombarded in the media, ‘.. sign up for this or that and you will receive a free whatever..’, ‘do this and you get this reward, a new cell phone..’ These rewards will fall apart, they break, their warranty will run out. These will not have a lasting effect…
What do you really want? …Deep down… what do you want?
Jesus came that we might have life to the full. Haven’t any of you good people who read these blogs experienced the presence of God in a real way? experienced a deep peace that was quite noticeable or had an event happen that was surprising (in a good way) beyond what you could’ve orchestrated yourself? Do you think about how deeply God Loves -YOU-! yes you, right now, at this very moment in time, God loves you beyond what you understand. He sees it all and still comes after you with a relentless love, like the Hound of Heaven.
God wants to do so much for us. He is closer than the very breath that we breathe. He is love itself. He is perfect love. Imagine the “perfect” best-friend. Someone who says the perfect things when you need it. Someone who shows up to help you at the perfect moment. Someone who will always be there for you no matter how badly you behave at times. They keep coming back to spend time with you because you are their best friend.. This is Jesus. This is Truth. And when Jesus comes and lives in your heart He brings those other 2 guys too, the Father and the Holy Spirit. All 3 of them help you.
Where did we get the idea that our lives will be colorless, boring, and unfulfilled prisons with one sorrow after another happening to us if we say yes to God? I think Henri is trying to get us to see what living a true, normal, human life with God is all about. This is drinking the cup of our lives. Letting God in, letting God lead us, even when it looks dark and scary and we lose control. God doesn’t lose control of our lives when we keep Him close. He sees the total picture and knows all the facts. He has the helicopter view of our lives. We see only the long and windy road with turns that we cannot possibly see around.
For me, spending your life with God, as I just described Him above, this is the reward of drinking the cup.
March 15th, 2007 @ 9:10 pm
This poem captures what drinking the cup means for me.
Thought it might be worth sharing.
NIGHT THOUGHTS
Somehow by day, no matter what,
I patch myself together whole,
But all my effort can’t offset
The nightly nakedness of soul
When angels in a dark descent
Strip off my integument.
I am a cornered rebel pinched
Between night’s armies and my lack,
And when inside the bedclothes hunched
I feel the force of their attack,
I hardly know what I can do,
Exposed to God at half-past two.
I once believed my being full,
But night thoughts prove that it is not.
Waking scared and miserable,
I scrape the bottom of the pot
And then must bow down and confess
Totality of emptiness.
Kings once ventured, it is said,
To offer gold and frankincense,
But I send nothing from my bed
Except a tattered penitence,
So very little has accrued
From years of doubtful plenitude.
God who tear away my cover,
Oh, pour your Spirit into me
Until my emptiness runs over
With golden superfluity,
And I bow down and offer up
Yourself within my earthen cup.”
William Bell
March 15th, 2007 @ 9:00 pm
I often spill the cup or balk at picking it up. Still, the lack of reward Henri speaks of is qualified for me in the beginning of the book”…I have my own life to live. No one else has the same challenge. I am alone, because I am unique…confronts us with our radical aloneness…radical uniqueness.” (p29) Henri goes on and descibes a statue that embodies this-”He is totally self-possessed….He truly holds his own.”
We risk all to drink Christ’s cup as well as our own so they become one. “It is only love.” Can we abandon all “reward” to answer “Yes” over and over to Christ, to God? For me, only with God’s mercy and grace. If this is what I am made for, then I hope I will become who I am. I hope I can be that alive in the sense Henri speaks of…to make myself a gift to God.