Alone?

Monday of the First Week in Lent

It remains true that loneliness often leads to hostile behavior and that solitude is the climate of hospitality. When we feel lonely we have such a need to be liked and loved that we are hypersensitive to the many signals in our environment and easily become hostile toward anyone whom we perceive as rejecting us. But once we have found the center of our life in our own heart and have accepted our aloneness, not as a fate but as a vocation, we are able to offer freedom to others…We can only perceive the stranger as an enemy as long as we have something to defend. But when we say, “please enter- my house is your house, my joy is your joy, my sadness is your sadness, and my life is your life,” we have nothing to defend, since we have nothing to lose but all to give….Who will be our robber when everything he wants to steal from us becomes our gift to him?...Who wants to sneak into our back door, when our front door is wide open?”

Show Me the Way, Henri Nouwen