Your Care Brings Cure

Jesus says of the Good Samaritan: “He went [to the injured man] and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.” (Luke 10: 34) In Jesus’ story, a Jew had been beaten up, robbed, and left injured beside the road. Two Jews, a priest and a Levite, walk right past him—they are focused on their ministerial duties of professional cure and offer no care. But a Samaritan man, who all his life has been scorned and rejected by Jews because he’s half Jew and half Gentile, stops to help the injured Jew. He’s busy but he takes time to care for the man’s wounds. He gets bloody. He gives up his donkey. He pays money to get the man a room at an Inn and further nursing help. The Good Samaritan offers care and cure. He offers lovingkindness to a stranger and an enemy who was suddenly his neighbor. CARE IS THE SOURCE O F ALL CURE To be a Care Partner is to put care before cure. We put compassion for hurts before coaching for change. Henri Nouwen wrote that care is the source of all cure: Care is something other than cure. Cure means “change.” A doctor, a lawyer, a minister, a social worker—they all want to use their professional skills to bring about changes in people’s lives. They get paid for whatever kind of cure they can bring about. But cure, desirable asit may be, can easily become violent, manipulative, and even destructive if it does not grow out of care. Care is being with, crying out with, suffering with, feeling with. Care is compassion. It is claiming the truth that the other person is my brother or sister, human, mortal, vulnerable, like I am. When care is our first concern, cure can be received as a gift. Often we are not able to cure, but we are always able to care. To care is to be human.

(Henri Nouwen Society Daily Meditation; February 8, 2016) Adapted from Soul Shepherding by Bill Gaultiere