by Jadell M. Forman
On Mondays at The Neighborhood Café, we’ve been considering Jesus’ question, “Can you drink the cup?” using a glass of wine as a metaphor for life, and taking our cues from chapters in Can You Drink the Cup? by Henri Nouwen.
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I have for years enjoyed the front-page, below-the-fold personal interest stories of the Wall Street Journal. One in particular is apropos in our discussion of community.
During the USA’s financially prosperous years, some Amish people became so well off that they incrementally pulled away from their Amish community where collaboration and interdependence are tenets and a way of life. Then when the national economy’s house of cards recently crumbled, their independence fell along with it. They re-discovered the blessedness of community.
In Can You Drink the Cup?, priest and author Henri Nouwen says that we drink from God’s cup of blessing when we share our lives in community. “When we lift the cup of our life and share with one another our sufferings and joys in mutual vulnerability, the new covenant can become visible among us” (p 69).
What are your thoughts about this Nouwen quote and the WSJ story in regards to the blessing of Christian community?
Jadell M. Forman writes for The Neighborhood Café on Mondays.
The Neighborhood Café 