unfamilar cup

Do you ever feel like you have a lesson to learn and right away you can see how difficult it’ll be for you to grasp? Like it stands there, waiting for you- a dark figure in the distance… And maybe you’ve seen it before and tried to avoid it, but walking past it only maps you in the same direction? I’ve felt that way this week. Before we got here I anticipated and feared the thought of what my life would look like or rather how I would be defined without all the things and roles that were currently defining me. Perhaps I feared this because, I would be disappointed with whom that person is, but I forgot to consider that I’ve used some of those things to protect me from experiencing particular feelings like pain or joy. Perhaps the loss of these two things, is the greater fear than the original disappointment. But there’s no protecting here or very little, I am who I am and I find myself symbolically unclothed and ashamed. I realize that I have a kaleidoscope view of myself. I look through a lense to see several angles of what looks to be different pictures only to discover that they are all angles of me.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about is the severe contrast between the familiar world I live in and what I am witnessing here. I think to myself there are so many needs and secretly question my faith in God to meet them.
While working at Samaritana this week I came across an article by Thelma Nambu, which seemed to fit with my thoughts. It talked about how we cover up the pain in our lives and try to forget it ultimately escaping healing. “When this happens we fail to offer our authentic selves to others and fail to love genuinely.” Embarrassed, I looked down at my costume. It is tattered and worn, I’ve outgrown it, my makeup is smeared and though I know my lines well, they sound all too much like an actor overacting. I’ve been playing this part for the majority of my life. I temporarily bandage up the wound, hoping it magically heals itself and return to the stage.
The article continued, “Paradoxically, true joy is often hidden in our sorrows. Henry Nouwen said, “The cup of life is the cup of joy as much as it is the cup of sorrow. It is the cup in which sorrows and joys, sadness and gladness, mourning and dancing are never separated. If joys could not be where sorrows are the cup of life could never be drinkable.”
I felt this was a true description of what we’ve seen here, though overwhelming at times, maybe what makes it feel like so much is this deep contrast, this unexplainable truth that there is great suffering here and equally there is great joy to be had. I take in my fill as I walk the crooked paths, and drink in both. The tension inside does not know how to digest it.

Thelma said, “It is when we acknowledge our pain that we begin to connect our own little story to the divine story, our sufferings with those of Jesus Christ. “ She then said that according to Nouwen to heal does not primarily mean to take pain away but to revel in the realization that our pains are part of a greater sorrow, that our experience is part of the great experience of Him.”