On a Mission

In between running back and forth from my desk to a printer in the filing room behind my desk, feeding it envelopes 10 or 15 at a time, I thought I'd share these thoughts on the whole of life as "mission" that arrived in my email from the Henri Nouwen society this morning.

Fulfilling a Mission
When we live our lives as missions, we become aware that there is a home from where we are sent and to where we have to return. We start thinking about ourselves as people who are in a faraway country to bring a message or work on a project, but only for a certain amount of time. When the message has been delivered and the project is finished, we want to return home to give an account of our mission and to rest from our labours.

One of the most important spiritual disciplines is to develop the knowledge that the years of our lives are years "on a mission."