Hoarding God

Today's Nouwen: The Temptation to Hoard

As fearful people we are inclined to develop a mind-set that makes us say: "There's not enough food for everyone, so I better be sure I save enough for myself in case of emergency," or "There's not enough knowledge for everyone to enjoy; so I'd better keep my knowledge to myself, so no one else will use it" or "There's not enough love to give to everybody, so I'd better keep my friends for myself to prevent others from taking them away from me." This is a scarcity mentality. It involves hoarding whatever we have, fearful that we won't have enough to survive. The tragedy, however, is that what you cling to ends up rotting in your hands.

There are folks that are in my life (well, affecting my life is a more apt description) that are hoarding God. "There's not enough God to be with everybody, so I'd better keep 'my God' for myself to prevent others from taking God away from me."

At the end of the day, though, God cannot be hoarded. At the end of the day, God will not be rotting in anyone's hands. At the end of the day, mean people will no longer be mean. At the end of the day, pain will be no more. At the end of the day, all will be well and all will be well.

Some days I am just so ready for the end of the day to come.

On another note, Monday morning, after a hard rain, I was waiting at North Dekalb Mall for the Cliff shuttle to take me to campus for a meeting. I was the only one at the shuttle stop, and happened to notice a long, wriggly worm in the middle of the parking lot. He was squirming around obviously seeking some dirt, but he was nowhere near any. Being the bleeding heart that I am, I picked him up from the cold, wet pavement and gently tossed him into the nearby bushes. I felt ridiculous, on one hand, trying to save a worm--the same kind of worm that I have pierced with a fishing hook (more times that I can remember) and sacrificed for the sake of simply hoping to experience the joy of catching a bream that is even too small to clean, much less eat. But I knew I couldn't just stand there and watch him squirm when I knew I had the ability to take him to that for which he was desperately searching. And I felt kinda good about helping him.

I went to campus, did my thing, got back in my car from the shuttle stop and headed home. Just as I was rounding the curve after turning into my neighborhood, I noticed a squirrel run across the road. As I watched him make it safely across and bound across a nearby yard, I took my eyes off the road only briefly. And in that split second another squirrel crossed my path.

Too late for me to swerve. Please let him be okay, please let him be okay.

I looked in my rearview mirror with that sick feeling in my stomach, and watched his tail give one last flick on the cold, wet pavement.

Simple words that I write, simple stories that I share. I have no strength to tie up the words or experiences with a nice bow, problem solved, move on. All I can do is just put them out there for what they are. For me, in these days, these simple things that I experience and encounter reach into the depths of my very being and call much about life into question. I see the hard truths of life in the smallest things, so much so that it's frightening, really.

I hope that when all is said and done, I will end up with a beautiful masterpiece of a quilt rather than just a few bits and pieces and scraps of words on a page. I pray that with God's help, I can stitch all of it--the questions, pain, joy, sorrow, laughter--all of it--into a meaningful way of living, being, and doing in the world that leaves peace, love, beauty, and wisdom in its wake.

May it be so.