Interruptions

For some reason, I get particular spiritual nourishment from insights that bring home the reality of Christ's humanity.  (For example, during a particularly protracted toilet-training struggle with one of my children, it ocurred to me that Mary had to toilet train Jesus.  This idea still bemuses and comforts me in all sorts of situations.)

I just came across this passage in an excellent Catholic critique of American secular culture, particularly the liberal feminist movement, Joyce Little's The Church and the Culture War:  Secular Anarchy or Sacred Order.  It struck me as not only a wonderful insight into Christ's humanity, but also a good reminder, in general:

Henri J. Nouwen in his book Out of Solitude quotes a professor at Notre Dame as saying, 'I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work.' Those of us who pursue a career are all too prone to define for ourselves where the importance of our work lies.  We are constantly tempted to dismiss the demands others make on us as a waste of time, their needs as far less significant than the projects to which we have committed ourselves.  We can become quite convinced that we are doing what God wants us to do and that he himself would not wish to see that work disrupted by the paltry loose ends of other people's lives.

What we fail to understand is that if these interruptions are a waste of time, then Christ's life was a waste of time.  For when we read the Gospels attentively, we discover that the story of his life is one long sequence of interruptions.  The blind Bartimaeus interrupts his departure from Jericho, a woman interrupts his dinner in the home of Simon the leper, a centurion interrupts his entry into Capernaum, Jairus interrupts his meeting with the crowd, the woman with the hemorrhage interrupts his attempts to get to Jairus' daughter, his disciples interrupt virtually everything; even Mary interrupts his enjoyment of the wedding.  The list could go on and on.  One might even say that the crucifixion interrupts what could have been a splendid messianic career.  Those were not interruptions, of course.  They were precisely the people he came to help, the things he came to do.  When so much of his work consisted of attending to those who interrupted him, why should we suppose our own lives to be any different?