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Can You Drink the Cup? - Week One

3/9/2014

5 Comments

 
For this time we read the Prologue, Introduction, and Chapter 1.  What follows are thoughts and questions to start discussion.  Please don't feel to the need to respond to all, or even any.  If there are other points you would like to discuss please feel free.  For next week we will read Chapters 2 & 3. 

Introduction:

*Nouwen describes the movement in his life from the ornate chalice of his ordination to the simpler glass cups of the l'Arche Daybreak Community.   What might the cup of your life look like?  Has that changed over time? 

*In telling about his enthusiasm for ministry balanced against his naiveté, Nouwen describes a moment of mixed excitement and fear.  Is this like, or unlike, moments in your relationship with God?

*Have you ever considered Jesus' question, "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?"  What does that question mean to you?  What could it mean for us to drink the cup?  What might that cup contain?

Chapter 1:

*Nouwen writes that first we must hold the cup, saying, "It belongs to the essence of being human that we contemplate our life, think about it, discuss it, evaluate it, and form opinions about it.  Half of living is reflecting on what is being lived?"  Do you feel that contemplation and reflection are that important?  Do you ever take time to consider life -- your own, those around you, others? 

*"Poverty and wealth, success and failure, beauty and ugliness aren't just the facts of life.  They are realities that are lived very differently by different people, depending on the way they are placed in the larger scheme of things," says Nouwen.  How is your uniqueness affecting the way in which you live out who you are?


5 Comments
Lisa
3/15/2014 11:20:33 am

This reading has already made me look at the meaning of drinking from the Cup in a whole new way, and I'm thankful for that. I was struck by the passage " Like that of a Warrior we must hold our cup and fully claim who we are and what we are called to live. Then we too can shoot for the stars!" I will use this to guide me for awhile....

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Lisa
3/16/2014 10:32:28 am

Today's service, and the previous one on evil, support the next two chapters which are very difficult to fully grasp. The cup of sorrow and joy, the balance of both and feeling the joy in so much sorrow, pain and unfairness can be such a struggle. The personal struggles I have are trivial but they are mine that I need to reflect on and claim, which seems easier than understanding how others do the same when faced with unfathomable challenges. We all drink from the same Cup, yet they are Filled so differently....

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Pastor Steve
3/16/2014 11:14:10 am

Thanks, Lisa, for that great lead-in to week 2, which is now posted.

Reply
Donna
3/17/2014 06:31:04 am

I stopped when I read "the cup of sorrow is also the cup of joy that precisely what causes us sadness can become the fertile ground for gladness." I am still trying to sort that one out. This reading is giving me a lot to contemplate about.

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Wanderlust Trevor link
12/8/2020 07:20:20 am

Very ccreative post

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