URBANarmy

Just been asked to pen a psalm of praise at the launch of our prayer room at Sutton. I want to share something I wrote with days of having arrived at ICO, and it came back to me this evening. I don't want to just feel your love I want to be your love. A love that reaches out, punching holes of light into the darkness of rejection, isolation and loneliness. A love that seeks relationship beyond what I get out of it. A love that brings life shared, a playful inter-relationship of wholeness. A love beyond me, that is more than my wants, needs and demands. A love that is you in me and me in you. A love complete!

"To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept. Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you." Henrinouwen.org

This was a little challenging from henrinouwen.org today.... We spend an enormous amount of energy making up our minds about other people. Not a day goes by without somebody doing or saying something that evokes in us the need to form an opinion about him or her. We hear a lot, see a lot, and know a lot. The feeling that we have to sort it all out in our minds and make judgments about it can be quite oppressive. The desert fathers said that judging others is a heavy burden, while being judged by others is a light one. Once we can let go of our need to judge others, we will experience an immense inner freedom. Once we are free from judging, we will be also free for mercy. Let's remember Jesus' words: "Do not judge, and you will not be judged" (Matthew 7:1).

A new word for me - commensality. Aspect of hospitality around a meal table, concept of not competing while residing in or occupying the same area as another individual or group having independent or different values or customs.