Some Henri Nouwen Thoughts

I fell behind on sharing some thoughts from Henri Nouwen with you over the holidays, so here are several at once for you to chew on!

A Ministry that Never Ends
Reconciliation is much more than a one-time event by which a conflict is resolved and peace established. A ministry of reconciliation goes far beyond problem solving, mediation, and peace agreements. There is not a moment in our lives without the need for reconciliation. When we dare to look at the myriad hostile feelings and thoughts in our hearts and minds, we will immediately recognize the many little and big wars in which we take part. Our enemy can be a parent, a child, a "friendly" neighbor, people with different lifestyles, people who do not think as we think, speak as we speak, or act as we act. They all can become "them." Right there is where reconciliation is needed.

Reconciliation touches the most hidden parts of our souls. God gave reconciliation to us as a ministry that never ends.

Letting Go of Old Hurts

One of the hardest things in life is to let go of old hurts. We often say, or at least think: "What you did to me and my family, my ancestors, or my friends I cannot forget or forgive. ... One day you will have to pay for it." Sometimes our memories are decades, even centuries, old and keep asking for revenge.

Holding people's faults against them often creates an impenetrable wall. But listen to Paul: "For anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone and a new being is there to see. It is all God's work" (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). Indeed, we cannot let go of old hurts, but God can. Paul says: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone's fault against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). It is God's work, but we are God's ministers, because the God who reconciled the world to God entrusted to us "the message of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:19). This message calls us to let go of old hurts in the Name of God. It is the message our world most needs to hear.

God's Imagination

So much of our energy, time, and money goes into maintaining distance from one another. Many if not most of the resources of the world are used to defend ourselves against each other, to maintain or increase our power, and to safeguard our own privileged position.

Imagine all that effort being put in the service of peace and reconciliation! Would there be any poverty? Would there be crimes and wars? Just imagine that there was no longer fear among people, no longer any rivalry, hostility, bitterness, or revenge. Just imagine all the people on this planet holding hands and forming one large circle of love. We say, "I can't imagine." But God says, "That's what I imagine, a whole world not only created but also living in my image."

Expecting a Surprise

Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let's not be afraid to receive each day's surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy. It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.

Our Spiritual Parents

Joy and sorrow are never separated. When our hearts rejoice at a spectacular view, we may miss our friends who cannot see it, and when we are overwhelmed with grief, we may discover what true friendship is all about. Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy. If we try to avoid sorrow at all costs, we may never taste joy, and if we are suspicious of ecstasy, agony can never reach us either. Joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth.

January 1, 2008

I went to the park today. The park where I often go to think and pray. A sort of pilgrimage site for me. I couldn't stay very long - it was too cold to spend more than 15 or 20 minutes outside at a stretch this morning. It was short, but so needed. Hardly anyone else was in the park, so when I'd stop moving, there was a perfect silence. So peaceful and deep and filled with the presence of God.
I built a tiny altar near the river one day early this fall. A monument to some time spent praying and listening. Today I added these three stones - symbolizing nothing and so many things. Three stones as I let my heart wander and talked with Jesus.

After the park I ended up driving around the city. A weird pilgrimage of sorts. To a number of places I've gone over the years to pray. Along routes that were some of the first places where I began to hear the voice of the Father, where it became more than a one-sided conversation. Places I drove and screamed at God while I was depressed. Places I drove and prayed in wonderment those first few months after I was healed. Places where I drove with desperately broken people in my passenger seat, talking and praying. Places and routes full of memories and nostalgia. And as I drove, I let the memories float back, and I prayed for the future. It was such a special time, a great way to start a new year!

This is a picture of my baby brother, T. and I. We had a movie date tonight. (We saw quite possibly the worst movie on the planet, "Enchanted" on the recommendation of one of T's friends. Instead of mutually enjoying a movie, we ended up bonding over rolled eyes, glances at our watches and groans of almost physical pain at the ridiculously bad nature of the movie.) We're hoping to have dinner together on Monday night, but if we can't, well, then tonight was the last time we'll see each other until I get back from Malta.

There is joy in T's smile again these last few days that has been missing for quite a while. I'm still praying that his wrist will be healed - whether supernaturally or with another surgery. I'd love it if you would pray with me for that. That he'll fully get his music back one day. But it made me happy to see the joy in his eyes again.

I asked him to pray for me before we separated for the evening. My church is commissioning me for my trip to Malta on Sunday, but T. will be out of town. I really wanted to hear him pray for me, as the sibling and family member who is most able to hear and accept my heart, and my differences from the family and religious structure I grew up in. He agreed and prayed blessing and other beautiful things over my life, my trip, my relationships. Such a special moment, sitting there in the car, parked in front of my parent's house in the dark, and hearing my baby brother talk to Jesus about me.

This was a good way to start a new year.

Headlines to start the new year

I'll write something of my own later. I'm still mulling, waiting for the words to begin to form and spill out of my head and onto paper or a screen.

For the moment, though, I've been spending the last half-hour or so reading international news headlines from the various regions of the world that have begun to be on my radar as my heart is broadened to the world. It would seem that it hasn't been a particularly peaceful start to the new year. Here are some of the headlines that caught my eye and my heart today:

Kenyans Burned to Death in Church

US Diplomat Dies in Sudan Attack

Pakistan Early Poll 'Impossible'

Leading Sri Lanka Tamil MP Killed

Praying for the world tonight before heading out for a while with my baby brother...

One Last Post for 2007

I've been trying all day to figure out what to write, how to end this year off on my blog.

I don't really know what to say. Tomorrow I'll reflect backwards, and then turn and look forwards, but tonight, there aren't quite words.

I'm sitting here in the semi-dark. In a few minutes I'll go back to the episode of Grey's Anatomy I'm watching on dvd. But for a few minutes I paused the dvd, and crept up into my stairwell.

My upstairs neighbors are African - Christians we're quite sure, though we've never met them except to smile and greet in passing on our way to and from our respective apartments. I sat in my stairwell in the dark, on my side of the door and wall that separates my home from theirs, and listened. They are singing and praying and worshipping in the New Year. Such beautiful harmonies, accompanied only by a tambourine, and such passionate prayer, though all in a language I'll never understand. I crept up the stairs to listen, to sit in the dark and let their prayers flow over me because I recognized the tune, if not the language, to one of the songs they were singing. "Oh How I Love Jesus." So beautiful.

I'm glad, I think, that the people who live above me bathe their home in worship and prayer. Tonight it makes me feel safe, and cozy as I stay alone this week while my roommate is out of town. I live in a building that (at least half of it anyhow) is regularly bathed in prayer. Beautiful.

Happy New Year!

The Long Way Around

I was thinking today about how the path I'm choosing in life right now isn't really all that traditional. How most of the people I went to high school with are all in graduate school becoming academics, or pursuing high paying careers in various fields. How I have a degree, but I'm working as a a receptionist in an unrelated industry, and dreaming of travel and coffee shops, and praying with friends all over the country and the world. How a new year is coming and my dreams are becoming stronger, rather than fading with a sense of growing responsibility and settledness. How in eleven days I'm leaving Canada for a month to start pursuing those dreams.

I was driving around earlier, doing errands, and listening to the country station on the radio (and singing loudly - since I believe that one should always sing loudly along with the radio while driving alone), and the song "The Long Way Around" by the Dixie Chicks came on. I can never actually decide what I think of the Dixie Chicks and their in-your-face political statements, but I do love a few of their songs, and this is one of them. Today, a few of the lyrics grabbed my attention, spoke of my journey, and gave me hope.

Well, I fought with a stranger and I met myself
I opened my mouth and I heard myself
It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself
Guess I could have made it easier on myself

But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow

Well, I never seem to do it like anybody else
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
If you ever want to find me I can still be found

Taking the long way
Taking the long way around
Taking the long way
Taking the long way around


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Now playing: Dixie Chicks - The Long Way Around
via FoxyTunes