Yesterday I finished a wonderful little book titled “Out of Solitude” written by one of my favourite authours, Henri Nouwen. Nouwen can write so much with so little. Even though this book was small, it has left my mind reeling with thoughts and new ideas.

The book is a collection of three meditations on the Christian life. Being only 63 pages (with large font and lots of white space on the pages) it did not take long to read. But quantity does not always equate to quality. This book, like many of Nouwen’s works, makes you pause and truly examine yourself and your surroundings within the framework of the house the Creator built.

One of the areas Nouwen discusses that has left me pondering since I closed the final page is the tension he talks about of care versus cure.
He shows that we live in a society that is focused on curing the problems around us. Leaking faucet? Call a plumber. Marital problems? Call a counselor. World hunger? Call a politician. There is a professional for everything. There is supposed to be a cure for everything.

However, whenever we fix one problem, two more pop up over there. The race continues trying cure all the problems.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have care. Our problem is, though, the most frequent use of the term “care” is in a negative connontation: Do you want to drive or shall I? “I don’t care.” What do you want for supper? “I don’t care.” Is this at all important to you? “I don’t care.” Nouwen says, “This expression of indifference toward choices in life has become commonplace. And often it seems that not to care has become more acceptable than to care, and a carefree lifestyle more attractive than a careful one” (pg. 37).

Why don’t we care? Is it because we believe there are profesisonals for that? “My responsibility is set free because I am not a professional in care.” I believe that if we stopped putting “cure” as our direct object and instead put “care” as our direct object, this world would begin to cure as a byproduct of the care. It is obvious that care is not a byproduct of cure.

I have noticed already in my own life when I have put, ashamedly, ‘cure’ in front of ‘care’. It is a stretch for me, but I believe care being first is the right thing. I am not saying not to help cure problems and issues, but pause and ask if this is rather a better time for care with cure to come later. There are instances when cure needs to happen right away, but I believe too often we speedily go that direction (and in some instances, neither ‘cure’ nor ‘care’ exists, but rather apathy, but that is for another day).

Care vs. Cure. Do you care?