two more challenging thoughts on woundedness from Henri Nouwen...
Tending Our Own Wounds First
Our own experience with loneliness, depression, and fear can become a gift for others, especially when we have received good care. As long as our wounds are open and bleeding, we scare others away. But after someone has carefully tended to our wounds, they no longer frighten us or others.
When we experience the healing presence of another person, we can discover our own gifts of healing. Then our wounds allow us to enter into a deep solidarity with our wounded brothers and sisters.
Listening With Our Wounds
To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering. Speaking about our own pain is seldom helpful for someone who is in pain. A wounded healer is someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds. When we have lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attentiveness and love to a depressed friend without mentioning our experience. Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person's attention to ourselves. We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole beings. That is healing.
Friday, July 10, 2009
All over the place...
My thoughts are (as usual perhaps?) all over the place this morning.
I keep hearing people complain about the weather we've been having. It's rained a lot this week. Or been sunny for part of the day and then settled into rain showers. I've been loving it. I could quite happily have this weather most of the time year round. Maybe I've just been needing the grayer skies, and the feeling of washing that comes with all of this rain... I don't know... but it's felt needed and good... soothing to a dry and weary soul these days...
I keep getting odd cuts in the palm of my right hand. I've had three or four of them this week, and they're a bit painful. Not deep enough to even bleed, just sort of breaks in the surface of the skin, bad enough to sting deeply, and pull when I move my hand.
I'm likely spending a chunk of today helping with some office moves at our company. Because, you know, I haven't done enough moving the last few weeks!
I have ambitious plans to be far more settled in our place by the end of the weekend. Plans that start with borrowing my dad's truck tomorrow, a trip to Ikea, and another possible trip to the dump. Probably also a trip to goodwill, and a trip to the recycling depot as well.
I managed to do two loads of laundry last night without the dryer in our apartment setting off our smoke detector. That was a welcome relief. I really do think that we have the most sensitive smoke detector on the planet.
I'm laughing at the truth of this cartoon at The Naked Pastor today... Wouldn't it be nice if more people told us these things at the outset?
I can't express how incredibly thankful I am that it's nearly the weekend. And that it's a weekend mostly without plans. No weddings. No moves. Just some cleaning and settling and probably some purging of belongings. A planned trip to the zoo with a friend. Plans to attend church. Maybe pancakes - it's been a while since I've had pancakes.
And much of the settling will need to be prayerfully done. Much of the unpacking that I have left are the deeply personal items. The reminders of times and places and peoples. Bits and pieces that have collected over the years. Altar stones really. So many circumstances have changed and shifted in the last year, and I am both dreading and looking forward to prayerfully arranging those memories around my space. To considering and reconsidering. To creating a space of order and peace and prayer around me again.
I keep hearing people complain about the weather we've been having. It's rained a lot this week. Or been sunny for part of the day and then settled into rain showers. I've been loving it. I could quite happily have this weather most of the time year round. Maybe I've just been needing the grayer skies, and the feeling of washing that comes with all of this rain... I don't know... but it's felt needed and good... soothing to a dry and weary soul these days...
I keep getting odd cuts in the palm of my right hand. I've had three or four of them this week, and they're a bit painful. Not deep enough to even bleed, just sort of breaks in the surface of the skin, bad enough to sting deeply, and pull when I move my hand.
I'm likely spending a chunk of today helping with some office moves at our company. Because, you know, I haven't done enough moving the last few weeks!
I have ambitious plans to be far more settled in our place by the end of the weekend. Plans that start with borrowing my dad's truck tomorrow, a trip to Ikea, and another possible trip to the dump. Probably also a trip to goodwill, and a trip to the recycling depot as well.
I managed to do two loads of laundry last night without the dryer in our apartment setting off our smoke detector. That was a welcome relief. I really do think that we have the most sensitive smoke detector on the planet.
I'm laughing at the truth of this cartoon at The Naked Pastor today... Wouldn't it be nice if more people told us these things at the outset?
I can't express how incredibly thankful I am that it's nearly the weekend. And that it's a weekend mostly without plans. No weddings. No moves. Just some cleaning and settling and probably some purging of belongings. A planned trip to the zoo with a friend. Plans to attend church. Maybe pancakes - it's been a while since I've had pancakes.
And much of the settling will need to be prayerfully done. Much of the unpacking that I have left are the deeply personal items. The reminders of times and places and peoples. Bits and pieces that have collected over the years. Altar stones really. So many circumstances have changed and shifted in the last year, and I am both dreading and looking forward to prayerfully arranging those memories around my space. To considering and reconsidering. To creating a space of order and peace and prayer around me again.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
The kind of day...
I've been flipping back and forth for a while now, staring at a blank blogger screen and wondering what to write.
It was the kind of day where I (quite enjoyably) briefly bumped into a friend I hadn't seen since we graduated from high school eight years ago.
It was the kind of day where the last little coincidences that I wanted to encounter where the ones I came face to face with.
It was the kind of day where mid-way through an attempt at a yoga workout I was interrupted, and I never quite made it back to it.
It was the kind of day where there were moments when I felt totally helpless and incompetent at my company, small and petty even.
And the kind of day where there were moments when I knew that I could excel at, and maybe sometimes even love my job.
It was the kind of day where I listened to the audio here (and read the essay) and remembered how life-shaping the essay author's book was. And how that book was the background for a trip that in some ways still has much left unfinished, unsettled, and uncertain.
It was the kind of day where I traded emails with several different people.
The kind of day where I came home from work and did some organizing, sorting and cleaning.
And the kind of day where one memory was just too poignant, and (after a bit of discussion with a friend) I made the decision to tuck the physical reminder of it in a drawer for the time being.
It is the kind of day where I'm sitting in bed before 10 pm, with music softly playing.
Where I'll read a little, and pray a little, and then hopefully sleep.
It was the kind of day where I (quite enjoyably) briefly bumped into a friend I hadn't seen since we graduated from high school eight years ago.
It was the kind of day where the last little coincidences that I wanted to encounter where the ones I came face to face with.
It was the kind of day where mid-way through an attempt at a yoga workout I was interrupted, and I never quite made it back to it.
It was the kind of day where there were moments when I felt totally helpless and incompetent at my company, small and petty even.
And the kind of day where there were moments when I knew that I could excel at, and maybe sometimes even love my job.
It was the kind of day where I listened to the audio here (and read the essay) and remembered how life-shaping the essay author's book was. And how that book was the background for a trip that in some ways still has much left unfinished, unsettled, and uncertain.
It was the kind of day where I traded emails with several different people.
The kind of day where I came home from work and did some organizing, sorting and cleaning.
And the kind of day where one memory was just too poignant, and (after a bit of discussion with a friend) I made the decision to tuck the physical reminder of it in a drawer for the time being.
It is the kind of day where I'm sitting in bed before 10 pm, with music softly playing.
Where I'll read a little, and pray a little, and then hopefully sleep.
Quote of the Day Brings Laughter
The daily quote on my calendar today made me chuckle.
"God always gives more than we ask." (Saint Marie-Victoire Couderc)
My immediate mental response was "No kidding."
Because sometimes God definitely gives what I wasn't even going to ask for.
And sometimes, his definition of "more" isn't quite what I had in mind.
For that matter, sometimes his definition of what I ask isn't quite what I had in mind.
I've glanced at the calendar off and on all day, and had to smile. Both at the reminder that God does indeed answer, and the chuckle that has come as I remember how rarely those were the answers I was in fact, looking for!
"God always gives more than we ask." (Saint Marie-Victoire Couderc)
My immediate mental response was "No kidding."
Because sometimes God definitely gives what I wasn't even going to ask for.
And sometimes, his definition of "more" isn't quite what I had in mind.
For that matter, sometimes his definition of what I ask isn't quite what I had in mind.
I've glanced at the calendar off and on all day, and had to smile. Both at the reminder that God does indeed answer, and the chuckle that has come as I remember how rarely those were the answers I was in fact, looking for!
A few headlines...
More thoughts to come later today, but for now, these two headlines caught my attention this morning...
This story made me chuckle. I like a person who leverages what he knows and does well to get the sort of response and customer service he should have received in the first place.
This story just made me sad. I have an aunt who worked for years in a methadone clinic. And I'm sad that Calgary, which obviously badly needs this facility can't seem to reconcile it. And that the neighborhood is reacting so poorly. As one commenter on the article put it, "Don’t they say that the measure of a society is how the treat those members that are the least fortunate? The users of this clinic need the help that was going to be offered there, but I guess that won’t happen now."
This story made me chuckle. I like a person who leverages what he knows and does well to get the sort of response and customer service he should have received in the first place.
This story just made me sad. I have an aunt who worked for years in a methadone clinic. And I'm sad that Calgary, which obviously badly needs this facility can't seem to reconcile it. And that the neighborhood is reacting so poorly. As one commenter on the article put it, "Don’t they say that the measure of a society is how the treat those members that are the least fortunate? The users of this clinic need the help that was going to be offered there, but I guess that won’t happen now."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
