Good morning…
“So, when you pray in your private prayer language, don’t hoard the experience for yourself,” says the Scripture verse at the end of yesterday’s blog post. “Pray for the insight and ability to bring others into that intimacy” (1 Corinthians 14:13, MSG). Intimacy. Sent at 3:54 am, our morning message ended in the word “intimacy.”
Then at 5:01 am, I opened Henri Nouwen’s morning message and there it was again, the word “intimacy.”
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DAILY MEDITATION | APRIL 8, 2022 – Solidarity is the Other Side of Intimacy by Henri Nouwen
Those who have entered deeply into their hearts and found the intimate home where they encounter their Lord come to the mysterious discovery that solidarity is the other side of intimacy. They come to the awareness that the intimacy of God’s house excludes no one and includes everyone. They start to see that the home they have found in their innermost being is as wide as the whole of humanity. . . . it is of great importance to see the inner connection between intimacy and solidarity. If we fail to recognize this connection, our spirituality will become either privatized or narrowly activist and will no longer reflect the full beauty of living in God’s house.
“Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling.” – 1 JOHN 2:10 (NRSV)
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Next, I open a music video sent to me yesterday, a video set to the song Amazing Grace sharing images of the atrocities being committed in Putin’s war against Ukraine. I sit in the intimate home of my innermost being, praying with our brothers and sisters across the globe, seeing the inner connection between true intimacy and deep solidarity. In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:28, MSG).
As we see innocent, ordinary lives reduced to rubble, we lift all who are suffering into the amazing grace of God. Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all (Proverbs 22:2, NIV). Intimately loving our brothers and sisters in Ukraine from the depths our innermost being, we live moment-to-moment in the radiant light of our living Lord. In oneness with God, we do not stumble. Bonded together in the power of prayer, we live in intimate solidarity with the Maker of us all.
As we watch this moving video, might we lift a prayer of intimate solidarity with all of God’s beloved people suffering across the globe?
…Sue…
