A Big Chunk of Henri Nouwen

Thanks to the busy long weekend, a day off work, it's been a bit since I've read and caught up on the bits and pieces from Henri Nouwen that arrive in my email every morning. So, without further ado, here are some great thoughts that have arrived over the last week or so.

Claiming Our God Given Selves

When we have been deeply hurt by another person, it is nearly impossible not to have hostile thoughts, feelings of anger or hatred, and even a desire to take revenge. All of this often happens spontaneously, without much inner control. We simply find ourselves brooding about what we are going to say or do to pay back the person who has hurt us. To choose blessings instead of curses in such a situation asks for an enormous leap of faith. It calls for a willingness to go beyond all our urges to get even and to choose a life-giving response.

Sometimes this seems impossible. Still, whenever we move beyond our wounded selves and claim our God-given selves, we give life not just to ourselves but also to the ones who have offended us.

Waiting with Our Response

Choosing life instead of death demands an act of will that often contradicts our impulses. Our impulses want to take revenge, while our wills want to offer forgiveness. Our impulses push us to an immediate response: When someone hits us in the face, we impulsively want to hit back.

How then can we let our wills dominate our impulses? The key word is wait. Whatever happens, we must put some space between the hostile act directed toward us and our response. We must distance ourselves, take time to think, talk it over with friends, and wait until we are ready to respond in a life-giving way. Impulsive responses allow evil to master us, something we always will regret. But a well thought-through response will help us to "master evil with good" (Romans 12.21).

Choosing Words Wisely

Words are very important. When we say to someone: "You are an ugly, useless, despicable person," we might have ruined the possibility for a relationship with that person for life. Words can continue to do harm for many years.

It is so important to choose our words wisely. When we are boiling with anger and eager to throw bitter words at our opponents, it is better to remain silent. Words spoken in rage will make reconciliation very hard. Choosing life and not death, blessings and not curses often starts by choosing to remain silent or choosing carefully the words that open the way to healing.

Speaking Words of Love

Often we remain silent when we need to speak. Without words, it is hard to love well. When we say to our parents, children, lovers, or friends: "I love you very much" or "I care for you" or "I think of you often" or "You are my greatest gift," we choose to give life.

It is not always easy to express our love directly in words. But whenever we do, we discover we have offered a blessing that will be long remembered. When a son can say to his father, "Dad, I love you," and when a mother can say to her daughter, "Child, I love you," a whole new blessed place can be opened up, a space where it is good to dwell. Indeed, words have the power to create life.

Up and Down Day

When I finally settled in to pray yesterday, it was a very good thing. For an hour and a half or so I paced my home, and had a conversation with Jesus. We talked about a lot of things - about dreams, about promises he's made, about the things I've been struggling with lately, about the many fronts on which I've been encountering opposition in the last several weeks. I walked away at rest - peaceful in the things He spoke to me.

It's a lot easier to rest in those things when you're not at that moment in the midst of the opposition. That's the lesson I began to learn today. Work was horrendous. By noon I was feeling equally exhausted to the way I had felt going into the weekend. I left for a few minutes to collect myself, and came back to discover an email from a very dear friend inviting me to dinner with her tonight since she was coming into the city. I think that email got me through the rest of the day - the promise of relief and enjoyment with a friend.

Time with Kari was relieving. We talked and she managed to encourage me, maybe without even trying. I went into the rest of my evening with restored peace and energy.

Funny how that goes, and how perspective can be so quickly gained and lost.

I'm working to learn to rest and live in the promises of protection that God has spoken to me both personally and through dear friends. This morning as I woke, the Lord gave me a picture of myself being clothed in a cloak, having it wrapped around my body, and then a hood pulled up over my head. The comparison that came to mind is the invisibility cloak from the Harry Potter stories. An ability to walk unseen in enemy territory. I think Kirk said something about that to me on the weekend. I went to work with that assurance, but quickly lost sight of it in the face of the opposition and tensions that have become commonplace there in the last few weeks.

So tomorrow, I'll try again. Again to rest in the promises of the armour of God, in the promise spoken to me from Genesis that He will be my shield and my reward, in the words of Psalm 91. I'll wrap the cloak of His protection around me and walk unseen in enemy territory - and this time I'll work to remember that though I can see and hear the enemy, I cannot be harmed, my peace cannot be snatched from me, the lies cannot affect me.

Resting

I woke up when my alarm went off this morning, and began the mental, physical and spiritual evaluation I run through most mornings. Basically, in the fifteen minutes between when my alarm goes off, and I have to crawl out of bed, I like to figure out what the baseline for the day is.

Today, I lay there and began to ask the Lord how I was doing, and what came next for the day. The weekend was amazing, but intense and exhausting, especially coming on the tail of the two previous intense weeks.

I have a number of sick days remaining, and only a week left in the employment year to which they apply. As I lay there and prayed, I felt very clearly that it would be okay for me to take a day and simply rest. To catch up on sleep, to do nothing mentally, emotionally, or physically exhausting.

So, I got out of bed long enough to send an email letting my office know that I wasn't coming in, and then headed back to bed to sleep another three hours. Now, it's noon, and I'm sitting on my couch, smelling my lunch baking in the oven, watching tv on dvd, surfing the internet, and beginning to feel restored. Almost ready to settle in for a long conversation with God.

I'm resting, allowing my body to catch up with my soul and mind. Reconnecting the parts of myself. And it's good.

Interesting headline...

Mentally Ill Suffering Neglect - this was a pretty interesting article, talking about the state of mental illness around the world, and the way that mental illness affects other health conditions.

Processing

I'm home from a crazy intense weekend. So good, I think. Full of great people, and great time with God.

I'm exhausted. Stuff has ramped up again, and I've only slept about 3-4 hours a night for the last four nights. Here's to hoping tonight is a bit longer.

Eventually I'll probably put some thoughts here. It may take me a while to figure out what, if anything can be shared. I'm feeling the need to pull back and take some time to really absorb the events of the last two weeks of my life, and particularly of the weekend.