Between Old and New

At the suggestion of a friend I've been re-reading a book by Henri Nouwen. "The Inner Voice of Love." What's funny about this whole situation is that the friend who suggested it is one who doesn't particularly enjoy Henri, and is reading that book herself partly as my suggestion. When she suggested that I work my way back through it, I wasn't expecting to be caught and convicted by nearly every page.

I read this section tonight, called "Enter the New Country"

You have an idea of what the new country looks like. Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country. You know the ways of the old country, its joys and pains, its happy and sad moments. you have spent most of your days there. Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it. It has become part of your very bones.

Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country...

Trust is so hard, since you have nothing to fall back on. Still, trust is what is essential. The new country is where you are called to go, and the only way to go there is naked and vulnerable.

It seems that you keep crossing and recrossing the border. For a while you experience a real joy in the new country. But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind, so you go back to the old country. To your dismay, you discover that the old country has lost its charm. Risk a few more steps into the new country, trusting that each time you enter it, you will feel more comfortable and be able to stay longer.

I wrote the following line in my journal tonight, just after recording that quote...

I'm living most days right now in some sort of bizarre no-man's-land between the old and new countries - completely dissatisfied with the old country, and yet very much afraid of the trust and risk that the new country requires for me to fully inhabit it.

I'm between old and new, and it kind of sucks, but I'm working to trust that it will be okay.