Am I all "pins and needles"? Or is there room in my life to be comfortable.

"Today I imagined my inner self as a place crowded with pins and needles. How could I receive anyone in my prayer when there is no real place for them to be free and relaxed." From The Genesee Diary, by Henri J. Nouwen

"When I am still so full of preoccupations, jealousies, angry feelings, anyone who enters will get hurt. I had a vivid realization that I must create some free space in my innermost self so that I may indeed invite others to enter and be healed. To pray for others means to offer others a hospitable place where I can really listen to their needs and pains. Compassion, therefore, calls for a self-scrutiny that can lead to inner gentleness.

If I could have a gentle "interiority" -- a heart of flesh and not of stone, a room with some spots on which one might walk barefooted -- then God and my fellow humans could meet each other there. Then the center of my heart can become the place where God can hear the prayer for my neighbors and embrace them with his love."

I found this writing by Nouwen in Disciplines for the Inner Life by Benson and Benson, on page 105, in the weekly readings about Intercession. Prayer is a way to care but we can't pray nor care if we are all pins and needles.

"Self scrutiny," leading to confession and the "tidying up" of my inner self and life, makes room in my life to care. 

Learning to care, sometimes, is not adding skills, but removing distractions. 

I hope this post, helps you like it has me. Doing the work to care, more than helps me care better. It makes me better. Caring helps me become the person God intended me to be.