Friday, March 13, 2009

Kidnapped Aid workers

This story about 3 aid workers kidnapped in Darfur has caught my attention, since one of them is a nurse and artist from Canada. These three articles all touch on the same information, and obviously share a common source, but the different parts of each of them were quite interesting to me.

Location of Kidnapped Aid Workers Known

Montreal Nurse Kidnapped in Sudan

Africa Removed My Rose Colored Glasses

Learning to Fly

I liked this post on Just Sally this morning. It was a challenging thought about trust for someone who's been struggling to learn to trust this year.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

News, and a Word I'll Use

Two articles that caught my attention this morning:

Canadian Among 3 Aid Workers Kidnapped in Sudan

17 Oil Workers Missing off NL Coast


And, the Dictionary.Com Word of the day:

Tetchy: peevish, testy, irritable.

This is a word that I'll be able to put to use :)

The Spirit Listening in Us (Henri Again)

another thought from Henri Nouwen that challenged me as I considered some happenings of the year, and the deep desire of my heart to both be healed and carry healing with me to others.

The Spirit of Jesus Listening in us

Listening in the spiritual life is much more than a psychological strategy to help others discover themselves. In the spiritual life the listener is not the ego, which would like to speak but is trained to restrain itself, but the Spirit of God within us. When we are baptised in the Spirit - that is, when we have received the Spirit of Jesus as the breath of God breathing within us - that Spirit creates in us a sacred space where the other can be received and listened to. The Spirit of Jesus prays in us and listens in us to all who come to us with their sufferings and pains.

When we dare to fully trust in the power of God's Spirit listening in us, we will see true healing occur.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Listening as Spiritual Hospitality

Another good thought from Henri Nouwen...

Listening as Spiritual Hospitality

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.

Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.