There must be a time of day...

There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all.
There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent.
And his mind forms no more propositions and he asks himself: Did they have a meaning?
There must be a time when the man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed, when the man of solutions puts his resolutions asides as if they all have been broken and he learns a different wisdom:
distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.

-Thomas Merton

I love this quote from Thomas Merton, and I would add "there must be a time of day when the man who has to be productive puts productivity aside and sits still with another human being and just be." To me, this is loving without using words. Have you ever thought about how often we use words or gifts to let someone know we love them? When was the last time you showed love to someone by just sitting with them praying for awareness to see that specific person just as Jesus Christ sees them? Or praying to see Jesus in them? When was the last time you sat with your wife or husband or sister or mother and just sat with them without an agenda? I believe that these are the precious times when "deep speaks with deep" and "heart speaks to heart". Have you ever been with a person and without saying a single word you connected in an indescribable way? Your humanity spoke to their humanity and their humanity spoke to yours? It is a mystical experience.

I wasn't in India long enough to really have profound cultural thoughts or any type of quasi-understanding of the country, however I do believe that I was confronted with a lot of "big" questions I wrestle with on a monthly basis. Questions about injustice, poverty, sin, hate, exploitation, joy, hope, resurrection, redemption and overall, humanity. There where thrown at my face. Kolkatta is a place you can not deny darkness or light? It is a place where I could not hide from any emotion. How can we say we love Jesus and in the same breath, act as though everything is fine in the world? 2/3 of the world are not living like you and me in the US. How can we know this and ignore it? How can we have so much and not give? How can we pray so much and not love? Is all of it idle chatter? Am I living in vain? Am I taking seriously the command to love God and to love each other seriously? There must be a time of day where these questions are confronted and wrestled with and acted upon. That was a bit of a tangent... back to loving by being still.

At the Sisters of Charity House for the Dying and Destitute, we were asked to do a lot of things , but the moments I will take away with me (I pray forever) were those of tenderness and intimacy with a woman who only wanted me to sit with her and scratch her back. I had no idea what she was saying when she spoke (language barrier), but it didnt matter. I could see the pain in her eyes and the relief she felt when I scratched where she could not reach. We sat with each other for a long time, there I saw Jesus. I saw Him in her. I saw Him with her. I saw Him starring at me telling me that I was redeemed and so was she. I believe that the most important and meaningful moments come in silence. I believe that in silence we recieve and give a love like we can not with lots of words. Hopefully, I am starting to see a glimpse of the love, compassion, truth and grace Jean Vanier and Henri Nouwen experienced in L'Arche. I pray we will all experience and see grace, love, compassion and truth from and through Jesus Christ apart from theological words or idealogies or doctrine or dogma, but in pure human to human contact and intimacy. We need to pray for the needs of each other and be bold enough to ask what each other need. It could be as simple as scratching a place that they alone can not reach.

"There must be a time of day when the man who has to be productive puts productivity aside and sits still with another human being and just be". To me, this is sacrificing our sake for the sake of others and doing that which we dont want to do and doing it because Christ commanded us to love each other just as He loved us. We must learn to distinguish when we are loving and when we are only speaking about loving.