The Cup of Life by Henri Nouwen

When the mother of James and John asks Jesus to give her sons a special place in his Kingdom, Jesus responds, “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” (Matthew 20:22). “Can we drink the cup?” is the most challenging and radical question we can ask ourselves. The cup is the cup of life, full of sorrows and joys. Can we hold our cups and claim them as our own? Can we lift our cups to offer blessings to others, and can we drink our cups to the bottom as cups that bring us salvation?

Keeping this question alive in us is one of the most demanding spiritual exercises we can practice.

To Dream Magnificently . . .

 

“To dream magnificently is not a gift given to all men, and even for those who possess it, it runs a strong risk of being progressively diminished by the ever-growing dissipation of modern life and by the restlessness engendered by material progress. The ability to dream is a divine and mysterious ability; because it is through dreams that man communicates with the shadowy world which surrounds him. But this power needs solitude to develop freely; the more one concentrates, the more one is likely to dream fully, deeply.”

– Charles Baudelaire

 

“Whatever part of the dream you remember is exactly what you need,like the grain of sand at the center of the pearl.”

– Gwynne Spencer

 

“Go Confidently In The Direction Of Your Dreams”

– Henry David Thoreau

We Never Know How High We Are (#1176) by Emily Dickinson

We never know how high we are 

  Till we are called to rise; 

And then, if we are true to plan, 

  Our statures touch the skies— 

  

The Heroism we recite

  Would be a daily thing, 

Did not ourselves the Cubits warp 

  For fear to be a King—