Blessed are the poor

Beatitude One

" Neediness is the empty cup,... the human vessel.

In our neediness, ... in our emptiness,

is where we truly come to know

our capacity .... to receive. "

                             Rumi?

Blessed are the poor (or ), blessed are the poor in spirit

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Once upon a time, a man named Jesus taught

And he made 8 statements, which have echoed through the years

Resonating in many hearts…

This is the way

The way

Blessed are

Ashr, blessing being connected to the concept of being “on the way”

or rather

“on the right path”

This path is not for the faint of heart

It is not the path of shallow “happiness”

It is the deep way

Which confounds our thinking

Blessed are the poor, the poor in spirit, the spiritually needy

Seriously?

Seriously!

The divine lunacy

Takes us right where we need to go

Why does such a sense of need lead to happiness? 

I think because it helps lead to the Sacred. 

People who are hungry will look for food. 

People who know they are needy spiritually, will reach out for the spiritual

They will seek it out

Hunt it down

Without that poorness of spirit?

All you need to do is look at those who are spiritually satisfied

To find the answer to that

Smug, arrogant, judgmental, closed, cold

Wrapped up in things that are not spiritual

For not recognizing that their need is spiritual,

They seek to satisfy their emptiness with other things

One of the great problems with Christianity today is that it does not see

Its own poverty.

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“How can we embrace poverty as a way to God when everyone around us wants to become rich? Poverty has many forms. We have to ask ourselves: 'What is my poverty?' Is it lack of money, lack of emotional stability, lack of a loving partner, lack of security, lack of safety, lack of self-confidence? Each human being has a place of poverty. That’s the place where God wants to dwell! 'How blessed are the poor,' Jesus says (Matthew 5:3). This means that our blessing is hidden in our poverty.

We are so inclined to cover up our poverty and ignore it that we often miss the opportunity to discover God, who dwells in it. Let’s dare to see our poverty as the land where our treasure is hidden.”

― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith