On The Journey Towards Caring for Others

I live at L'Arche Daybreak, the community where Henri Nouwen made his home for the last ten years of his life. During that time he received many invitations to speak. Eventually Henri found it easier to make these trips when a couple of people from our community could accompany him and give the talks with him.
One time I traveled with Henri to Texas, where we visited a nursing home to which we had been invited to address the caregivers. As we planned the talk, we reflected on our own community life and developed three themes: the bath, the table, and the bed. In our community an enormous amount of each day revolves around these very human experiences of bathing, eating, and sleeping.
In busy North American culture, we tend to place little value on these mundane experiences of life: we take quick showers, we eat fast food, and we "burn the candle at both ends," often cutting our sleep short. Yet for people who are very frail or disabled, the bath, the table, and the bed form the framework of each day. These rituals take on a new importance, even demand a new discipline - the discipline of gratitude. Recognising the sacred in the everyday is central to living a spiritual life. The bath, the table, and the bed can become holy places in caring for others - and in caring for ourselves - when we practice the discipline of gratitude.

by Carl MacMillan