Solitude: Care and Community
David C. Myers
August 10, 2008
Mark 6:30 - 44
Matthew 14:22 - 33
Text: "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while." . . . Mark 6:31
Perhaps it's the pace of the summer. It's slower, more relaxed, a time for introspection. And during the summer I have been doing some introspection. In particular I have again read Henri Nouwen's Out of Solitude. It is good for me to review such works, for I also find myself, perhaps like many of you, occasionally needing a refresher course on the basic link between caring and community.
This morning I would like to share with you some of the insights Nouwen, through his books, has shared with me. With respect to full disclosure, I add that some of the illustrations used in this sermon are from his book, Out of Solitude.
From the two Scripture passages we see that Jesus went off to be in solitude. From there he seemed to be able to reach out His caring hand to people in need. From the solitude Jesus was able to enter into a healing closeness with His brothers and sisters.
We don't need any reminders that Jesus cared. It is fairly obvious: He fed the hungry, made the blind see, the deaf hear, the crippled walk, and the dead live. But that is "curing"; and often we forget that behind the act of curing there was a tremendous amount of caring. "[Jesus] took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd"; or, that Jesus did not raise Lazarus from the grave without tears and a sigh of distress that came straight from His heart, "because He loved him."
Caring is not easy and I strongly suspect that caring came no easier to Jesus than it does to you or me. What we like to see is cure and change. But what we do not see and do not want to see is care in the form of participation in the pain and the sharing of brokenness.
Many churches mix up the words cure and care. Churches say that they want to be a caring community; a healing agent in the community. They say that they visit the sick, help the poor, teach moral values, and provide an example. But the temptation is that we use our desire for curing - our own modern age expertise - to keep a safe distance from that which really matters. Our response usually comes from what we know we can offer, and seldom do we venture into areas that might scare us - and where caring is really needed.
Let us first ask ourselves what care really means and then see how care can become the basis of community.
There once was a Chinese rice farmer who, from the loneliness of his hilltop farm saw the ocean swiftly withdraw from the shore. He knew that this was the result of an earthquake, and that the withdrawal of the ocean would soon be followed by a great tidal wave. Knowing too that his neighbors were working in the low fields, they were in great danger of being swept away if they were not warned. So the farmer set his own fields on fire and furiously rang the temple bell. His neighbors, seeing the farm on fire, rushed to the hilltop to help him. From that height, they safely saw the great tidal waves cover the fields they had just left.
What does it mean to care? The word "care" finds its roots in the Gothic word "kara", which means "to lament." The basic meaning of care is: to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out with. So often our society tends to look at caring as an attitude of the strong to the weak, of the powerful toward the powerless, of the "have's" toward the "have nots." In fact, I think when we say care we often mean "cure"; for we feel quite uncomfortable with an invitation to enter into someone's pain before doing something about it, or at least being confident that we won't be exposed to a problem that will threaten us. We might take a lesson from the Chinese farmer. In the solitude of a lonely place on his hilltop farm he saw danger. Without thought of his own well-being he did the only thing possible to save his fellow farmers in their fields in the lowlands. He set his fields on fire and brought them running to help so that when the tidal waves came in, they were safe on the hilltop.
You see, care involves a willingness to suffer, to grieve with, to experience sorrow. When you honestly ask yourself which people in your life mean the most to you, I think that you will find it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share your pain and touch your wounds with a gentle and tender hand.
You might remember moments in which you were called to be with a friend who had lost a wife or husband, child or parent. What can you say, do, or propose at such a moment? There is a strong inclination to say: "Don't cry: the one you loved is in the hands of God." "Don't be sad because there are so many good things left worth living for." But are we ready to really experience our powerlessness in the face of death and say: "I do not understand. I do not know what to do, but I am here with you."
The friend who cares is one who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness. The friend who cares makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters.
It is remarkable how much consolation and hope we can receive from authors who, while offering no specific answers to life's questions, have the courage to articulate the questions of life in all honesty and directness. I recall, how about 37 years ago, in the midst of my own pain and loneliness Albert Camus' The Fall became almost a Bible for me; not because of the answers it gave, but because of how it spoke to my situation, and in so doing liberated me from being alone and gave me new strength to go on. The courage of author's to enter so deeply into human suffering and to become present to their own pain gave them the power to speak healing words.
Therefore to care means first to be present with each other. From experience you know that those who care for you become present to you. When they listen, they listen to you. When they speak, you know they speak only to you. Their presence is a healing presence because they accept you on your own terms, and they encourage you to take your own life seriously and to trust your own senses.
This is somewhat different from our own tendencies - at least my own tendency - to run away from the painful reality or to try to change the situation as soon as possible. We tend to live in what I call a "band-aid" culture. We see pain and we want to eliminate it. We see a wound and we want to cover it up. In other words, we want go immediately to cure without passing "Go" and definitely without stopping at care.
Cure without care makes us preoccupied with quick changes, impatient and unwilling to share each other's burden. And so cure can often become offending instead of liberating. But cure without care makes us into rulers, controllers, manipulators, and prevents a real community from taking shape.
Community and Care: we an understanding of "care" now we can look at how we can become a caring community, not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life.
It is important to realize that we cannot get a degree in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we ask, "Where can I find a doctor?" When someone is confused, we easily and quickly advise them go find a counselor. And when someone is dying or sick, we quickly call a minister. Why, even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around.
That was the case in June of 1787 during the days of deliberation about the Constitution of the United States. When the discussions did not seem to go anywhere, Benjamin Franklin proposed to open the sessions with prayer. But the delegation to the convention rejected the proposal not because they did not believe in prayer, but because they had not money to pay a chaplain.
Although it is usually very meaningful to call on outside help, sometimes our referral to others is more a sign of fear to face the pain than a sign of care, and when that is the case we keep our greatest gift to heal hidden from each other. It's the gift to care, to be compassionate, to become present to one another, to listen, to hear, and to receive. Those who can sit in silence with their hurting friends without knowing what to say but knowing they should be there - that can bring new life to a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief or lift a sigh of distress open up a whole new relationship - a much deepened relationship. As Henri Nouwen says, we become "wounded healers."
But in our society it is hard to care? Why?
I suspect it is because of two things; the first is we do not want to enter into another's pain. And the second is that we aren't even able to face our own deep-seated pain. We din it so hard to drop our defenses and expose our own vulnerability. Maybe we are so full of our own opinions, ideas, and convictions that we have no space left to listen to the other and to learn from him or her.
There is a story about a professor who went to a Zen Master to ask him about Zen Buddhism. Nan-in, the Zen Master served him tea. He poured the visitor's cup full, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. "It is over-flowing. No more will go in."
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I teach you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
If to care means first of all to be present to one another; then to be present to another means that we have 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.
Henri Nouwen then reminds us: "When we do dare to care, then we discover that nothing human is foreign to us, but that all the hatred, and the love; the cruelty and the compassion; the fear and the joy can be found in our own hearts. When we dare to care, we confess that when others have killed, I could kill 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 tortures, to the young person who plays as if life has no end, and to the oldster who stopped playing out of fear of death. This is very similar to what Thucydides wrote centuries ago, 'It was in those who have recovered from the plague that the sick and dying found most compassion.'"
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 to the powerless;
• not to be different, but Jesus came to be fully human;
• not to take away our pain, but to share it.
Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.
Community, as strange as it may seem, begins with the solitude that allows us to know who we are so that we don't have to pretend to be someone we are not. Then we can be present with others, and share who they are and what they feel.
"And [Jesus and the disciples] went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves. . . . As Jesus went ashore He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion on them." (Mark 6:12 &14)
From the solitude of a lonely place, Jesus was able to reach out to a crowd and there was plenty for all to eat.
As long as we are occupied and preoccupied with our desire to do good but are not able to feel the crying need of those who suffer, our help remains hanging somewhere between our minds and our hands and does not descend into the heart where we can care.
But in solitude, our heart can slowly take off its many protective devices, and can grow so wide and deep that nothing human is strange to it. Then we can care, and out of caring comes community - the fellowship of the broken; a fellowship of wounded healers.