Drinking the Cup

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After firmly holding the cups of our lives and lifting them up as signs of hope for others, we have to drink them. Drinking our cups means fully appropriating and internalizing what each of us has acknowledged as our life, with all its unique sorrows and joys.

How do we drink our cups? We drink them as we listen in silence to the truth of our lives, as we speak in truth with friends about ways we want to grow, and as we act in deeds of service. Drinking our cups is following freely and courageously God’s call and staying faithfully on the path that is ours. Thus, our life cups become the cups of salvation. When we have emptied them to the bottom, God will fill them with “water” for eternal life.

Lifting the Cup

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When we hold firm our cups of life, fully acknowledging their sorrows and joys, we will also be able to lift our cups in human solidarity. Lifting our cups means that we are not ashamed of what we are living, and his gesture encourages others to befriend their truth as we are trying to befriend ours. By lifting our cups and saying to one another, “To life” or “To your health,” we proclaim that we are willing to look truthfully at our lives together. Thus, we can become a community of people encouraging one another to drink fully the cups that have been given to us in the conviction that they will lead us to true fulfillment.

Holding the Cap

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We all must hold the cups of our lives. As we grow older and become more fully aware of the many sorrows of life—personal failures, family conflicts, disappointments in work and social life, and the many pains surrounding us on the national and international scene—everything within and around us conspire to make us ignore, avoid, suppress, or simply deny these sorrows. “Look at the sunny side of life and make the best of it,” we say to ourselves and hear others say to us. But when we want to drink the cups of our lives, we need first to hold them, to fully acknowledge what we are living, trusting that by not avoiding but befriending our sorrows we will discover the true joy we are looking for right in the midst of our sorrows.

The Cup of Life

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When the mother of James and John asks Jesus to give her sons a special place in his Kingdom, Jesus responds, “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” (Matthew 20:22). “Can we drink the cup?” is the most challenging and radical question we can ask ourselves. The cup is the cup of life, full of sorrows and joys. Can we hold our cups and claim them as our own? Can we lift our cups to offer blessings to others, and can we drink our cups to the bottom as cups that bring us salvation?

Keeping this question alive in us is one of the most demanding spiritual exercises we can practice.

Sharing Freely Our Knowledge

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Often we think that we do not know enough to be able to teach others. We might even become hesitant to tell others what we know, out of fear that we won’t have anything left to say when we are asked for more.

This mind-set makes us anxious, secretive, possessive, and self-conscious. But when we have the courage to share freely with others all that we know, whenever they ask for it, we soon discover that we know a lot more than we thought. It is only by giving generously from the well of our knowledge that we discover how deep that well is.

Seeing the Miracle of Multiplication

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The opposite of a scarcity mentality is an abundancy mentality. With an abundancy mentality we say, “There is enough for everyone, more than enough: food, knowledge, love . . . everything.” With this mind-set we give away whatever we have, to whomever we meet. When we see hungry people we give them food. When we meet ignorant people we share our knowledge; when we encounter people in need of love, we offer them friendship and affection and hospitality and introduce them to our family and friends.

When we live with this mind-set, we will see the miracle that what we give away multiplies: food, knowledge, love . .. everything. There will even be many leftovers.

The Temptation to Hoard

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As fearful people we are inclined to develop a mind-set that makes us say, “There’s not enough food for everyone, so I better be sure I save enough for myself in case of emergency,” or “There’s not enough knowledge for everyone to enjoy; so I’d better keep my knowledge to myself, so no one else will use it,” or “There’s not enough love to give to everybody, so I’d better keep my friends for myself to prevent others from taking them away from me.” This is a scarcity mentality. It involves hoarding whatever we have, fearful that we won’t have enough to survive. The tragedy, however, is that what you cling to ends up rotting in your hands.