…that “if a person were in a rapture as great as St. Paul once experienced and learned that his neighbor were in need of a cup of soup, it would be best to withdraw from the rapture and give the person the soup he needs.” – from The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, Belden Lane
a memory of Van Gogh by Anton Kerssemakers, found in “Van Gogh: a self portrait, letters revealing his life as a painter, selected by W.H. Auden”
In those days he was starving like a true Bohemian, and more than once it happened that he did not see meat (for the purpose of eating) for six weeks on end, always just dry bread with a chunk of cheese. It won’t go bad on the road, he would say. The following story may serve as proof that he was quite accustomed to this and would not have it otherwise. Once in Nuenen, when we were about to set out on a ramble-it was in the afternoon at the height of summer-I said, “To begin with we’ll have a pot of coffee made in that inn over there, and eat a lot of bread and butter with trimmings, then we shall be able to keep going until late this evening.”
No sooner said than done, for he invariably consented to whatever you proposed.
The table was well furnished with various kinds of bread, cheese, sliced ham and so on.
When I looked, I saw he was eating dry bread and cheese, and I said, “Come on, Vincent, do take some ham, and butter your bread, and put some sugar in your coffee; after all, it has to be paid for whether you eat it or not.”
“No,” he said, “that would be coddling myself too much: bread and cheese is what I am used to,” and he calmly went on eating.
Once in a while we meet a gentle person. Gentleness is a virtue hard to find in a society that admires toughness and roughness. We are encouraged to get things done and to get them done fast, even when people get hurt in the process. Success, accomplishment, and productivity count. But the cost is high. There is no place for gentleness in such a milieu.
Gentle is the one who does “not break the crushed reed, or snuff the faltering wick” (Matthew 12:20). Gentle is the one who is attentive to the strengths and weaknesses of the other and enjoys being together more than accomplishing something. A gentle person treads lightly, listens carefully, looks tenderly, and touches with reverence. A gentle person knows that true growth requires nurture, not force. Let’s dress ourselves with gentleness. In our tough and often unbending world our gentleness can be a vivid reminder of the presence of God among us.
– Henri Nouwen
Edge of Atlantic 