The world looked on Henri Nouwen as one who had achieved, a great
man, author of over twenty books, a talented professor who had served
at Yale and Harvard. But for Henri it wasn’t enough. The last ten
years of his life were spent at Daybreak, Jean Vanier’s l’Arche
community in Toronto, Canada, where the concepts of his books finally
met hard reality. At Daybreak he took care of a profoundly retarded
young man named Adam. When someone suggested that he could delegate
that responsibility, Nouwen retorted, “It is I, not Adam, who gets the
main benefit from our friendship.” Henri made no more sense to the
secular mind than his Master, and this is true greatness.
Henri Nouwen died in September 1996.
Real care is not ambiguous. Real care excludes indifference and is
the opposite of apathy. The word “care” finds its roots in the Gothic
“Kara” which means lament. The basic meaning of care is: to grieve, to
experience sorrow, to cry out with. I am very much struck by this
background of the word care because we tend to look at caring as an
attitude of the strong toward the weak, of the powerful toward the
powerless, of the have’s toward the have-not’s. And, in fact, we feel
quite uncomfortable with an invitation to enter into someone’s pain
before doing something about it.
Still, when we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives
mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of
giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share
our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The
friend 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, that is the friend who cares.
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.” Are we willing to not run away from the pain, to
not get busy when there is nothing to do and instead stand rather in
the face of death together with those who grieve? . . .
Our tendency is to run away from the painful realities or to try to
change them as soon as possible. But cure without care makes us into
rulers, controllers, manipulators, and prevents a real community from
taking shape. 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. It is therefore
not so strange that cure is not seldom refused by people in need. Not
only have individuals refused help when they did not sense a real
care, but also oppressed minorities have resisted support, and
suffering nations have declined medicine and food when they realized
that it was better to suffer that to lose self-respect by accepting a
gift out a non-caring hand. . . .
. . . Every human being has a great, yet often unknown, gift to
care, to be compassionate, to become present to the other, to listen,
to hear and to receive. If that gift would be set free and made
available, miracles could take place. Those who really care can
receive bread from a stranger and smile in gratitude, can feed many
without even realizing it. Those who can sit in silence with their
fellowman not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be
there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid
to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief, and to let a sigh
of distress arise straight from the heart, can break through
paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the
fellowship of the broken. . . .
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. . . .
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.
Excerpted from Out of Solitude.
First published in Cornerstone (ISSN 0275-2743),
Vol. 26, Issue 111 (1997), p. 8
© 1997 Cornerstone Communications, Inc.
Electronic version may contain
minor changes and corrections from printed version.
