Listening For The "Yes"

The following is an excerpt from Henri Nouwen's personal journal, The Inner Voice of Love.

Always Come Back To The Solid Place

"You must believe in the yes that comes back when you ask, "Do you love me?" You must choose this yes even when you do not experience it.

You feel overwhelmed by distractions, fantasies, the disturbing desire to throw yourself into the world of pleasure. But you know already that you will not find there an answer to your deepest question. Nor does the answer lie in rehashing old events, or in guilt or shame. All of that makes you dissipate yourself and leave the rock on which your house is built.

You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God's love even when you do not feel it. Right now you feel nothing except emptiness and the lack of strength to choose. But keep saying, 'God loves me, and God's love is enough.' You have to choose the solid place over and over again and return to it after every failure." 

Sometimes You Can't Do Anything

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

~ Elie Wiesel

A new Facebook friend of mine recently posted this quote on her timeline, and I like the quote, I really do. I agree with it. Where we see suffering and pain or injustice, we must speak up and out.

But what about the times when you're burnt out, whipped, beyond tired and you can't seem to do anything?

We must allow for these times in our lives. We must not beat ourselves up if there are days, even weeks when we are unable to be the hero, the outspoken one. There are many days when it is hard to get out of bed; we are physically, mentally, or emotionally spent - perhaps all three.

And sometimes we get the saviour complex, thinking that we must revolt against every single injustice, or that we must fix every disturbing situation or disturbed person out there. But what good will we be, how quickly will we be burnt out, if we don't take care of ourselves first?

Sometimes we must "go into hiding," where it is just us, or for those who believe in the Divine, us and the Divine. In this place, no words need to be said, no speeches need to be given, no crusade needs to be fought.

There will again come a day when you can take up the cause, but sometimes you can't do anything.

Mark Andrew Nouwen

We Can Only Give To The Extent That We Are Received

Matter of Taste Coffee Bar
Kitchener, Ontario
3:29p.m.

It feels good to give. Whether we are giving of ourselves to someone we love who is in a tough spot - say a job loss or a difficult relationship - or whether we are giving to someone we have never met before, it feels good.

But we can give to others only to the extent that we are fully received. Received by who, you may ask? Received by ourselves, and if you believe in the Divine, received by the Divine as well.

We get so bogged down by our own baggage, some of it is justified. We've been bruised and battered and our expectations of how life was going to turn out for us may have fallen through.  We need mending, we need to feel held. And to a certain degree we can be the recipient of those things from other people, but I think it needs to come from more than one person, like a religious community or social group, as well as time spent with a therapist. Because not one person can bear all of our pain, and our pain may drive them away.

But if we are on the road toward healing, we can begin to give, as we start to feel received and accepted by our inner selves, or the Divine. Otherwise we may find ourselves oozing our pain to those in need instead of helping them.

And it feels so good to give. Helping an elderly person to shovel snow from their driveway, sending a "thinking of you" card to a friend going through a hard time, or having coffee with someone who just needs a listening ear.

It is better to give than to receive, but we can only give to the extent that we have been received.

Mark Andrew Nouwen

Learning To Deal With Our Own Pain

It seems these days like we have opportunities at every turn to spill our guts. I find this particularly true of Facebook and Twitter, as these are sites that I have used, but there are a multitude of others. Facebook and Twitter can be a good way to spread important information in a split second, but they can also become places where we go to bleed freely and attempt to have our wounds licked.  It seems that some people  - and I have been guilty of this in the past - immediately hit social media when something bad or something good happens to them. Today I'm thinking more about the bad.

How many of us have taken to our computers when we're really lonely and we cast the Facebook net out there hoping that we'll catch someone's eye who will fill our loneliness? How many of us tweet madly hoping that others will be impressed by the agility of our thumbs and respond in some way?  This can come in lieu of  a lost relationship, a lost job, lost faith. More than often we would do better to keep our own secrets and learn to be held by the few close people around us - friends, family, therapists, rather than walk around bleeding.  While posting everything on the web for all to see, or by sharing your innermost pain with strangers, you may feel temporary relief, but eventually you will feel desperate.

The late Catholic writer Henri Nouwen wrote a piece called "Own Your Pain" in his personal journal The Inner Voice of Love:

"The main question is 'Do you own your pain?' As long as you do not own your pain - that is, integrate your pain into your way of being in the world - the danger exists that you will use the other to seek healing for yourself. When you speak to others about your pain without fully owning it, you expect something from them that they cannot give. As a result, you will feel frustrated , and those you wanted to help will feel confused, disappointed, or even further burdened.

But when you fully own your pain and do not expect those to whom you minister to alleviate it, you can speak about it in true freedom. Then sharing your struggle can become a service; then your openness about yourself can offer courage and hope to others.

For you to be able to share your struggle as a service, it is also essential to have people to whom you can go with your own needs. You will always need safe people to whom you can pour out your heart. You will always need people who do not need you but who can receive you and give you back to yourself. You will always need people who can help your own pain and claim your struggle."

I am being challenged today to 1) go inside to the place of pain and find healing in God instead of displaying my pain to the whole world, and 2) to be held by the certain few people in my life who will take me as I am.

Mark Andrew Nouwen

Reminder: You Are Loved

Sometimes we lose sight of who we want to be, or even who we really are at the core of our being. We get very pre-occupied with our jobs, or volunteerism, and our families. We spend our time playing video games or watching movies or spending time online that we lose peace and a heightened level of anxiety replaces it. Recently I was on a city bus and I looked around and probably almost half of the riders were exercising their thumbs by texting on their phones or accessing an app. We no longer look around at nature or our fellow man; instead we look down at our phones.

And we wonder why we don't have more peace in our lives; instead we are worried. We wonder why we aren't more loving and kind towards others; instead we are frustrated and impatient. We forget what solitude and silence are, because our phones are always on, 24/7.

We also forget who we are at the core of our being. We forget that we are unique creations, that there is literally no one on the face of this planet who is exactly like this. We are so far removed from that which is greater than ourselves (whether we call that God, Spirit, Love, the Universe, etc), that we forget how loved and cherished we really are. We forget that we matter.

When your husband of 25 years suddenly announces that he's leaving for a 23-year-old, you are loved.

When your boss calls you into her office and states that the company is "restructuring," you are loved.

When the doctor comes back with a devastating prognosis for you or a family member, you are loved.

So how can we get back to the place where we remember what we really want, and who we are at the core of our being. I believe it is by getting back to the place where we're seeking first the kingdom of God. Now, those words need translating for me, because both "kingdom" and "God" don't mean a lot to me anymore.  What I take this bit of scripture to mean is that if we seek out the things of God (who is Love), therefore loving others and ourselves, we will come back into understanding of what we want and who we are.  This means service to others. It means doing the little things that mean so much to our friends and neighbours. And it means being a stranger to self-rejection by being kind and loving to ourselves mentally, emotionally, and physically.

May you realize you are loved today, and may we re-commit to loving others and ourselves.

Mark Andrew Nouwen

Giving & Receiving Simple Yet Powerful Love

Here is a story from Easter Sunday in Vatican City. Pope Francis continues to impress me. And I think we can all learn from this story. It is a powerful thing to give love to people who may otherwise be cast aside or deemed unlovable, and it is also powerful to receive love from these truly valuable people. May our hearts be broken so that more love can fill us.

The Separation of Church & Body

Sex.
Sex. Sex.
Sex. Sex. Sex.
...and a kiss.
While you're at it, throw in a hug.

Why is it that many Christian churches have so much disdain or embarrassment about the body and, well, sex?  This has been the case for many many years and I believe it has done great harm to a whole lot of people who have been sitting in the pews.

Perhaps this disdain for the body explains the foaming at the mouth vehemence that some Christians have towards homosexuality, because talking about homosexuality means talking about sexuality, period.

It is what we believe that matters, they exhort.
It is what is in our heart that matters, they preach.

Watch out for the body.

The Church's disdain for the human body and our physical needs is bad enough, but when paired by the fact that so many of us didn't receive the physical touch or attention that we needed from one parent or both while children, well that's a double whammy.

We are physical beings, and we express things with our bodies that can not be expressed in words. A hug, a caress, a simple gentle glance can speak volumes.

And perhaps at our deepest level, we are sexual beings. So many rules have been put up to ensure that we don't go all perverse. Again, we can't trust our bodies. So therefore 1) we have to be married before we share our sexual selves with someone else, 2) only one sex should be dominant and be able to ask for it (guess which one?) and 3) it should all be kept hush hush.

When it comes to the body, when it comes to sex, the Church needs to open up the windows and let the wind blow through. Expression rather than repression. We would do well to realize this for ourselves as well.