Your Own Begging Bowl Could Balance Relationship

She greets me nearly every morning as I come to my work at the nursing home.

It isn’t her smile or her words that touch me. A stroke has made it impossible for her to smile or speak.

But her eyes are bright for those moments when our hearts connect.

And Lisa (not her real name) can raise her twisted, fisted hand for me to hold. Sometimes as my hand covers hers, she will move my hand to her cheek.

There are also times when she signals she would like a gentle kiss on the cheek.

Lisa probably doesn’t even know what a day-planner is. Her physical circumstances make it unnecessary to list each day’s appointments and tasks.

Every day is very much the same for her, and her wonderful nurses and aides take care of each activity for her.

Lisa probably doesn’t know what a begging bowl is either. She doesn’t even realize she is using one every day.

I’ve known about day-planners for about 18 months. For a time, I even got caught up in the compulsiveness these time-management tools can often represent.

Begging bowls have been a part of my awareness for only a few months. But they provide a much-needed balance to the tyranny that day-planners can insinuate into one’s life.

The begging bowl is an ancient monastic tradition. Like the bowl, the tradition is very simple. Yet very profound.

I discovered this tradition through “Everyday Sacrede,” a book by Sue Bender.

Put very simply, a monk would go out of the monastery with his begging bowl. And whatever was placed in his bowl would be his food and drink for the day.

He trusted in the goodness of God and other people for his very survival.

I see a pretty disturbing contrast in my own life when I hold my day-planner in one hand and a small, wooden bowl in the other.

In one hand, I see potential obsessive-compulsiveness based on my own need to succeed.

In the other, I see an incredible symbol of total trust in people and in God.

Are you with me? Which hand holds the real trust in your life?

An authentic search for spiritual maturity must - again and again, it seems - pass through the shadowed valleys where it’s too dark to see your day-planner. All you can do is offer your begging bowl in trust that what you receive is what you need.

So what do you get in those bowls? I hope it’s whatever you need on a particular day. I also hope it is offered by other people with grace, forgiveness and a touch of the radical hospitality with which God nourishes us.

It took me some time to realize that Lisa wasn’t just offering me her hand. She was also holding out her begging bowl.

So when I stop to say hello, to smile, to let our hands hold one another, it’s like I’m putting something in her begging bowl.

It must have some nutritional value for her. Or else why would this be a regular part of our greeting one another in the hall?

What may not be so easy for Lisa to understand is that I, too, have a begging bowl. And when she holds up that drawn hand with the pretty purple plastic ring on it, she is filling my bowl with grace and forgiveness and trust. I must tell her very soon that she fills my begging bowl.

I wonder if she thinks she can only receive from others. I wonder if she knows that even though she is physically incapable of doing tasks for another person, she is very capable of touching another person’s heart.

I certainly hope she at least partially understands the impact her vulnerable grace has on her caregivers.

Do you have a Lisa in your life? Someone who is dependent on you and others to fulfill simple material and/or emotional needs? Someone whose dependency on you goes far beyond your dependency on that person?

Unequal dependency can often lead to resentment, even fractured relationships. That easily can happen when one person holds out a begging bowl and the other person offers only his day-planner.

So when confronted by another beggar’s bowl, what will it take for you to offer your own begging bowl?

You know it’s there, hiding within the pages of your day-planner.

xxxx