TWH Week 5: Chapter 4 (June 25th - July 1st)
Reading: Chapter 4 - Ministry by a Lonely Minister
This chapter brings us home. Over the last few weeks we've sought to understand the hopeless man, who is a part of a rootless generation, living in a dislocated world. In this final chapter we allow ourselves to be present to our own personal wounds - to recognize that they are as real and deep as those we see around us. Yet we can also affirm that because we experience these deep wounds we are in fact in a better position to offer ourselves as a facilitator of healing and hope.
1) Henri begins by articulating one of the deepest human pains - loneliness.
a) What are some areas of our inner lives that Henri is referring to with this word loneliness?
b) Take some time to consider signs and symptoms of loneliness in your own heart and life - for some it will be very obvious, but others will have to think creatively in order to identify how loneliness manifests itself (You may choose to not share your reflections, but this is a good activity none the less.)
c) Can you recognize the habits, techniques, distractions you've developed in your life in order to cover over feelings of loneliness?
2) As the chapter progresses we begin to see how such a deeply painful experience of loneliness can in fact be the very tool that transforms us into effective ministers. Henri asks each of us to let the pain of loneliness lead us on a courageous and honest journey inward to our center, where we can allow our Creator to set us free, and learn to be at home there.
a) How does one begin to learn to be at home in one's own skin?
b) Can you describe a moment when you tasted the freedom of being at home with yourself and with God? What led you to that moment?
c) How can we be sure that once we arrive at our own center, we will "know that being alive means being loved"? (p98)
3) Henri suggests that people who are at home with themselves are able to create a safe space for others to "dance their own dance, sing their own song, and speak their own language without fear."
a) Have you ever known someone who seemed truly at home in their own skin - did you feel the freedom to "dance" in their presence?
4) Finally, Henri really emphasizes that as ministers we are not meant to try to solve people's problems for them. Rather, "when people come with their loneliness to ministers, they can only expect that their loneliness will be understood and felt, so that they no longer have to run away from it but can accept it as an expression of the basic human condition" (p99).
a) How can this type of acceptance of another relieve suffering, and bring health to a person's life or to a community?
b) How can we find the balance between being comfortable with woundedness - ours and others, while not glorifying it, feeding it, exhibiting it, or over-emphasizing it?
Once again, I encourage you to share whatever came up for you through the reading. I offer these questions simply to get us thinking and sharing. Looking forward to hearing from each of you!
June 25th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Greetings and peace to all participants. Your sharing has been important to me.
I have come to accept loneliness as part and parcel of the human experience. It amazes me that I can be surrounded with so much care and loving support and yet feel so brutally isolated and alone. I have been blessed by God’s holy presence in my life, in unmistakably life altering ways. I have sometimes felt God’s nearness whisper close and what can only be viewed in retrospect as God’s divine hand prodding me on …and yet even with all of this, loneliness can fall on me like a funeral pall.
I take heart in knowing that Jesus suffered through his alone times as well, times where he felt totally abandoned by God…and yet, we have the resurrected Christ which gives us hope in all things, Christ who promises to be with us through all of life, right here, right now.
I find being in a servant frame of mind works best for me in chasing away the alone factor. When I am in a servant frame of mind, grace and love are ever present companions. I need to balance self care with care for others, which can present some challenges. I remind myself every time I can that I am prepared for this life through God’s baptismal promise, that this life is not my own, it is indeed my love song to God who made it all possible. Good positive care of self is crucial, I need to show as much love for myself as God has in making me. Not indulgent love, but nurturing live giving love. Talk about an balancing act!
It’s funny, since I was a young girl, I have never been afraid to die, I have often thought it would be a nice alternative to life. However, the longer I live and the more often I let God drive the bus, the happier I have become. I have learned to not live in resentments, I have learned to truly forgive as I have been forgiven, and most of all, to accept that forgiveness. I have learned that all the perceived slights and wrongs which I have encountered in life have indeed ultimately shaped me in positive ways. I have learned to love the perpetrators and refer to them as “different kinds of saints”. How easy it has been to use the good examples God gives us as beacons of sainthood, and yet it has been eye opening for me to see that which I abhor in others to be living somewhere within. I have come to realize that to acknowledge what I have come to call the “Pharisee within” has been a very useful tool in coming to love the other. I have slowly been learning to accept life on life’s terms and to trust in God’s divine guidance and love. I have found some measure of serenity and peace.
My gut feeling may sound somewhat heretical, but I feel that before we are born into this life and after we leave this life we know intimately what true communion and unity is all about–one-ness with each another and with our Creator. A symbiotic relationship with all creation, no ego…just blessed unity. A beautiful integrated whole. No wonder we are on a quest to experience wholeness.
Blessings.
June 25th, 2012 at 4:04 pm
As to question one, on a personal level, when I have felt loneliness in my life, I tended to be very restless, constantly “on the go,” never sitting in one place. I felt a need to be out and about, and around people. If I wasn’t calling someone to go do something, I was out in stores shopping or doing something else just to stay busy and be around others. If no one was available, I found some “busy work” to take my mind off of the loneliness. Engaging in those types of activities is what covered over feelings of loneliness. I often see that manifested now in others, and a sure sign of the lonely person is the one, not unlike the priest Henri Nouwen mentions, who is constantly complaining about being so busy, having too much to do, and having no time. That is a sign of a lonely person.
Which leads into question number two, we have to learn to be at peace with ourselves, before we can be at peace with others. If we are constantly on the go, masking that loneliness, we will never stop and learn to be at peace within. That, however, is easier said than done, as you have to sit still enough to let it take hold. You have to face the loneliness, and go inside yourself, understanding who you really are, and your relationship with God. Of course, that is an ongoing journey, but one needs to start the process, and confronting the loneliness and inner pain is the place to begin.
Personally, I feel lucky, as events in my life were such that I was kind of forced to confront my own inner loneliness and fears, and it was a struggle, most difficult to accept. However, I do remember a moment when I was finally at peace with myself, and it really did feel like a new found freedom. It was after I had lost everything, marriage, material possession, and not only a job, but my career. I was down to a bicycle, clothes, and some books. I remember being out on my bike traveling somewhere, and as I crossed some railroad tracks, suddenly I broke out in a big smile, as I suddenly came to the realization that although I had nothing left, I had everything! From that point on I was at peace with myself and with God, and began moving forward.
Addressing some of the issues in question four, having experienced that allows me to have empathy with others, not trying to solve their problems, but as Henri Nouwen alludes to, simply being there, and being present in the moment for another human being. But to avoid “glorifying it, feeding it, exhibiting it, or over-emphasizing it” as mentioned in question four, what Henri Nouwen I believe refers to as “spiritual exhibitionism” on page 88, one has to constantly work on one’s humility. It is no longer about you; it is about the other person. Waxing on about what happened to you in the past is not going to help the other person deal with that person’s current situation. But being there for the person, acknowledging the pain, and helping the person come to see that what they experience is simply part of being human, and then moving them to accept it as part of who they are, will help them find some inner peace and in turn peace with God. I always say one has to make peace with oneself first, then peace with God, and only then can one make peace with others. And by peace I refer not to the absence of conflict, but peace as confident in who we are as human beings and confidence in the love and mercy God has for us.
June 25th, 2012 at 9:45 pm
So this all sounds good, but what do we do when our helping and caring gets thrown back in our face? I think there are two kinds of people. People who hesitate to go beyond themselves and are reluctant to get involved, and, (I’m exaggerating here just for the sake of clarity. ) The ones like Rose and I that have never walked past a crying, lonesome, hurting person. Speaking for myself, Rose - to the detriment of my own family and children. I have acted on every message which contained a “should” in it that I have ever heard - well, practically. I had to learn a few boundaries. I have had to learn how to have superficial conversation for the situations where other people don’t want to talk about real things. If we are ministers, called to a ministry of healing, sooner or later we are going to find ourselves in a relationship where our “healing” and even loving is not wanted. I’m hoping at least some of you recognize this question. I would like some feedback on this one.
June 25th, 2012 at 11:17 pm
Marianne, you raise a good point, what to do in situations where our presence is unwelcome or otherwise unwanted. But I think you already answered your own question. You stated that “[you] had to learn a few boundaries.” That is probably the key. Sure, we want to help those in need, and be there for them. But at the same time, we need to use some discretion and prudence when dealing with other people. The important thing is to make oneself available, but not push ourselves on someone who is not ready. I think the situations that Henri Nouwen speaks of in this book are those situations where someone is either asking for our help or otherwise receptive to it, and what we have to do to best handle those situations. I don’t think he is asking us to go into situations and allowing ourselves to get beat up. If someone does not want your help at the present time, you just back away and let them come to you on their own terms, but at the same time always making yourself available to them.
I don’t know if that is the feedback you seek, but it is just some thoughts I had after reading your comments.
June 25th, 2012 at 11:57 pm
I can do that Marianne. I think that first question relates: what are some areas of our inner lives that Henri is referring to with this word loneliness. See on the great ship finding its way into port Henri is not wanted - in the way even - and he feels it… feels powerless and useless and that he doesn’t belong. Except then there is that marvellous moment when the Captain after telling him virtually to get lost, suddenly says after all “Why don’t you stay. This might be the only time I really need you.” The Captain is, of course, referring to the potential for disaster, and in an oblique way referring to the value of prayer and of having a spiritual person present.
But most of the time on that ship Henri is surplus to requirements as they say.
I think you are feeling lonely and ’surplus’ like Henri was. I don’t think there is anything to be done when people don’t want you and what you offer, except what you are doing which is to respectfully keep out of the way. But the difference might be in knowing your own value in being present as one with a spiritual connection. Your job then is keep your own spiritual connection going. Someone might suddenly realise its value. But whether or not they do, keep the connection within yourself with Jesus.
I hope this might speak to you. If it doesn’t then I’m sure someone else will help. Bless you.
June 26th, 2012 at 9:41 am
I have found that being in a posture to serve and to help and guide someone does not mean that I have the answers or that I can control the outcome in any way. I have needed to let go of my expectations of my personal effectiveness, release my sense of pride and acknowledgment at the curbside and accept that what I have to contribute is enough. Easier said than done, but worth working towards none the less. I cannot do this alone, it is only through God’s help working amongst us and with us that I come close. I often use the image of a balance scale, knowing that the final grain of sand may tip the balance, get all the accolades, etc., but it is meaningless but for all the tiny grains of sand on which it rests.
It really helps to let God drive the bus. My willfulness has taken me on some unsettling and ultimately unfulfilling wild goose chases. I got tired of chasing my tail. It is astonishing to see the places God takes us when we submit to God’s will, it is not in the least bit as restrictive as one might think it to be.
June 26th, 2012 at 11:32 am
Marianne, God works for sure — I am short on time so just perused this very quickly BUT — (because it was your post, stopped and read it). I thank you because it is odd how a stranger can read my heart! Oh yes oh yes, caring and not walking past but stopped to be a light does get one into a lot of trouble and way too involved. I am beginning to learn to TRY to care but make a referral to someone else in the case of some situations and then say/pray — “there is only one Messiah, and it isn’t me” — Lord please let me be loving and stay out of trouble and send us timely help. You touched my heart in your post. We have to remember that we need to recharge our own batteries and being idle is allowed (unlike my upbringing)…. have to run - my prayers are with you and thank you Marianne for being the Light of Christ to me this day.
June 26th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Hello all
Well…once again Henri speaks directly to my heart. He seems to have a knack for doing that! I’d like to start out by sharing with all of you some of what I wrote in my journal yesterday morning: “I feel so incredibly lonely and utterly alone. Is this how Jesus felt when He walked upon this earth? I do think so.” And then….I read this chapter! What can I say? He obviously wrote this just for me! “The Christian way of life does not take away our loneliness; it protects and cherishes it as a precious gift.” (pg. 90). What a concept..to embrace this loneliness and see it as a gift. This idea is so comforting and liberating and, as Henri says, aren’t we all looking for a “Liberator”??
I can relate to the priest who keeps so very busy “doing” because he is afraid to just “be”…to sit still and really experience the pain of loneliness. But, like Chuck, I suppose I too should consider myself lucky that I am, at this point in my life, being forced to experience my own inner loneliness and fears. Thanks for that Chuck…you probably didn’t even realize in your own willingness to be open and vulnerable, that you would be a “wounded healer”! I am a teacher and home for the summer..spending a good deal of the time alone as my youngest daughter is traveling and busy with college preparations (I am soon to be an “empty nester”) So God is lovingly forcing me to be patient with my alone-ness and, with the help of Henri and this forum, to actually consider it a gift that will help me in whatever ministry is awaiting me.
I am grateful for all of your amazing insights and willingness to share. Everyone in this discussion has been a wounded healer for me. This discussion has served as a ministry to me and I feel blessed to have been a part of it.
Thank you Brynn for your thoughtful questions…I’m not sure if I addressed any of them this time around…I am grateful that you encourage us to respond as the Spirit leads us!
Thanks for listening all
Peace
Diane
June 27th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Diane, the summer before college is a very difficult (and lonely one). I pray that you get through it easier than you anticipate. When I go back to when I did my “farewells” on campus those two Sundays of move in weekend, I still cry although it was many years ago but then smile. Trust me, you will get through it well. Your daughter will be home more than you realize but it is usually for a meal and then swiftly out the door with friends. My first experience with that was upsetting until I vented with a friend who gave me an alternative scenario and then I realized this was normal (although hurtful). As I may have mentioned to you once before, I lamented (empty nest) in Sept. 2006 and by Feb. 2007 my life with the other generation (2), changed my life forever. I never in a million years anticipated this. This month I seem to be running a “mom’s bed and breakfast” — literally — and today my 94 year old mom reminded me of the conversation we had when I was having empty nest. I pray that your future gives you the time of freedom. Try to enjoy and change the loneliness into solitude (wait, that was another book
I hope that all goes well because as the summer goes forward, part of the separation process (at least for anyone I know and especially with girls), is the pulling away “I am an adult and don’t need you mom” attitude. May God give you the strength to endure and not have this make you feel more lonely. This too shall pass and you will get the telephone calls for recipies and any number of other things they refused to listen to before leaving. Someday Diane, you will look back and laugh at this transition but right now it is excruciatingly painful, I do feel for you! Hold God’s hand and every time you worry about her - just place her in the arms of safety so that you can get some sleep. I always imagined (no matter what hour it was), that mine were in their bed asleep …..yes, I was kidding myself but whatever works!
I have been very reserved and not sharing much on here in depth, due to my “fear” of on line and things just being “out there”, but I very much appreciate all of you who have opened up a window to your life and soul. God Bless You All.
June 28th, 2012 at 3:38 am
Hello to all, I came by this book in a rather peculiar chain of events and as always with divine intervention it was exactly what I needed when I needed it. My chosen profession is to help others cope with thier mental illness. This book has helped me identify my personal struggle with depression as a source of strength and healing not only for myself but what I can offer others. I was profoundly effected by the concept of being at home with my depression and loneliness. Acceptance is always the first stage of healing. I thought “how can I be at home with my loneliness?” After reading the book and your comments I really don’t know how to be any other way. This is who I am and this is what I have to offer. I hope that through my presence and hospitality others find comfort and can learn how to “be” who and what God meant them to be. The struggle now is to be as authenticly me as Christ was authenticly Christ.
June 28th, 2012 at 6:50 am
Thank you for your post Marianne.
Did you ever hear the expression “sheep-bite.” In our ministry we try to take care of sheep, but sometimes we when we minister we get bitten. Last week I had a case of sheep bite myself. In our humanness we think this should not happen. But if we follow the master, it actually should happen sometimes. What a painful but important lesson for us.
Your heart is in the right place, and it is so apropos to this group discussion on being a wounded healer.
In the little community of this group discussion, we find that we are not alone, and somehow mystically there is a unity in this pain. However, we know, as Henri said on pages 90-91, “No love, no community, commune, or collective, no man or woman will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be release from this lonely condition.” We can substitute the word lonely with other emotional words, like hurt, rejected, abandoned, misunderstood, etc. No one can satisfy these because only God can love with perfect love.
Praised be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation! He comforts us in all our afflictions and thus enables us to comfort those who are in trouble, with the same consolation we have received from him. As we have shared much in the sufferings of Christ, so through Christ do we share abundantly in his consolation.
June 28th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Henri Nouwen - “If indeed we listen to the voice and believe that ministry is a sign of hope, because it makes visible the first rays of light of the coming Messiah, we can make ourselves and others understand that we already carry in us the source of our own search. Thus ministry can indeed be a witness to the living truth that the wound, which causes us t suffer now, will be revealed to us later as the place where God intimated his new creation.” I love the language of Henri Nouwen of “home” and being at home with our loneliness so that we are capable of being with others in their loneliness and freedom to be themselves. My challenge is not fearing the privacy of other people, who are actually very closely related to me but being able to “live with thus far unanswered questions.” My hope is that as I pray to God for help to be able to be at “home” in my own loneliness ultimately others very close to me will feel free to reveal themselves and we indeed will be closer in community. One way I seem to deal with the anguish of not feeling a deeper level of trust and community is to read too much and buy too many books in the search for knowledge of “some other”, therefore my home is not comfortable as it would be, not as peaceful as it would be, but these books by Henri Nouwen do provide help and also the blog. Hope to be more able to live with loneliness and not substitute inappropriate solutions, looking in places where there is no real answer and move forward. At lease one thing I have going for me is–probably because I’m reading books like this one–I am trying to face the problem and not despair or cut off the people I seek to be closer to. Just trying to be healthier in relationships to them. Brynn, I thank you so much for moderating and giving us questions and things to think about. It definitely was a great idea to have a summer book study and has benefitted so many of us. Best wishes to everyone for a very pleasant rest of the summer.
June 29th, 2012 at 12:08 am
The concept of learning to be ‘at home in one’s own skin’ is an interesting one; I think there needs to be a distinction between being at home in ourselves (having a keen awareness of our strengths, weaknesses, gifts and limitations) and being comfortable with ourselves (acknowledging the aforementioned attributes but having no desire to pursue further growth and development – choosing instead to resign ourselves to the life-commandment ‘that’s just who I am’.
Being at home in one’s skin can be construed by some as being self-assured, overly confident, aloof and sometimes even arrogant – usually by those who, unbeknownst to them, are not at home in their own skin.
My personal observation has been that often the external affirmations of others are a reflection of our internal attributes which can do nothing but make themselves visible to those we share our lives with simply because of who we are.
In speaking of hospitality, Nouwen writes that ‘…the host must feel at home in [their] own house…’ and that ‘…a free and fearless place…’ must be created for the unexpected visitor (p89, 1972).
When we feel at home in our own house, when we are comfortable in our own skin, it allows another to enter our space and become a recipient of our hospitality whilst at the same time creating an opportunity for them to examine in a safe and hospitable environment the degree to which they are at home within themselves or otherwise.
June 29th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
I’ve been deeply drawn to the idea of being “at home in my own skin” for quite some time. I’ve always been a sensitive person, and all together too concerned about other people’s opinions. A wise man painted the following image for me…
When you live always thinking about what other people think, or comparing your life to other’s, you are living like a horizontal line - always grasping for the approval of others. It is a very unstable feeling/place because you are not grounded anywhere. Coming home means shifting to the vertical where you are grounded, like a tree, in your own core, and in God.
You come to realize that the thoughts, fears, questions etc. that come up while you are living in the horizontal are not reliable. With practice, time and solitude one can learn to come “home” to their core and make decisions, sort out thoughts and fears etc. there - in a way that is reliable. It is helpful to ask yourself where you are at in any particular moment - horizontal? vertical? some degree in between?
Of course, in my understanding, it is quite important that we invite God into our core/ the centre of our lives. In this way we can trust that when we learn to come home we will “know that being alive means being loved” (p98). We can know this simply because God has tenderly loved us before we could ever be deemed worthy or unworthy. The Psalmist (139) reminds us as he prays:
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
(emphasis mine)
Although I’ve made progress in my understanding and ability to be “at home” I still have a long way to go. Like all things, I imagine it takes prayer, practice, discipline, and guidance. Reading all your insights and comments certainly encourages and informs my own practice - thank you! I trust that as I learn and grown, and am able to be more at home, I will be able to provide a hospitable, healing space for others to do the same.
In gratitude to you all,
Brynn
June 29th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Rose, thank you for your kind and encouraging words. You have been my “wounded healer” on this forum in a very special way because you have experienced the same kind of loneliness and were willing to share your wounds with me. Please don’t underestimate the value of your sharing, despite your fear of being online and your feelings of being reserved. God is using you especially because you have been so courageous in sharing. I am humbled and grateful.
Brynn….I love Psalm 139 and for me, it speaks to your reference to Henri’s assertion that “when we are not afraid to journey into our own center,…..we come to know that being alive means being loved.”
Thank you for reminding me of that.
Peace all
diane
June 29th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
After finally getting caught up and reading the last chapter this morning. I had many thoughts in regards to what Henri had to say in regards to our common experience of loneliness. Back in about 2007 or 2006 I read “Spiritual Direction” Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith by Henri Nouwen. There was a section in that book were Henri shared the spiritual story of his life. He encouraged his readers to write their own spiritual story. I did so by using his example as my template. I felt led to share part of what I wrote back then; I feel it ties in with this chapter. At least I hope so.
I know few people are capable of accepting a gift hidden in brokenness. This is my starting point. I admit I am spiritually broken. I feel I represent a certain percentage of Christians. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to see, hear, and believe God’s story for us.
Two voices have been speaking to me. I am sure all Christians hear these voices to some degree. One voice says: “Make something of your life.” (our efforts to achieve what we feel is in our best interest) The other voice speaks to the spiritual aspect of our life: “Be sure you never loose touch with your spiritual source and your spiritual vocation.” (this is given to us when we become Christians)
My history with God affects the way I listen, read, speak, think, and pray. It is part of a greater story. God’s story of my life. When I claim and share my sacred history; I bear witness to others that God has a greater story about us. Now reread this paragraph from the viewpoint that this is about you.
…..in the late 80’s or early 90’s I quit going to church on a regular basis. Why visit a church when you come away feeling lonely. I had already been hurt spiritually at several churches. God wanted me to go through a wilderness experience to build me up in the way He wanted to build me up not in the way I wanted to be built up.
I would like to summarize what I have learned in the spiritual wilderness in this way: Picture a community of broken Christians. Come to know these broken Christians because they have a message for you and me. They silently speak to us about God and God’s friendship in a concrete way.
First, these broken Christians teach us that being is more important than doing. God wants us to be with Him and not do all sorts of things to prove we are valuable. My life has been doing. Has yours? I am a driven person wanting to do things so that I can show that I am worthwhile. Does this describe you also? I hear God saying to me: “I don’t care what you do, as long as you will be with me.” Is God saying this to you also? It is not easy simply to be with a person and not do much
Secondly from a broken Christians I learn that the heart is more important than the mind. For many Christians giving high priority to an intellectual approach to life is a deeply honed value in them. I have seen that what makes a human being human is the heart with which one can give and receive love.
When the physical, emotional, intellectual, or moral part of life commands all the attention, we are in danger of forgetting the primacy of the heart. The heart is the divine gift that allows us to trust. Very small children seem to have a deep intuitive knowledge of God and that heart; sadly; it is often obscured and suffocated by the many systems of thought we gradually acquire as we become adults
People with physical and mental disabilities easily let their hearts speak and thus reveal a spiritual life inexperienced by many intellectually astute Christians. The spiritual life; the life of the heart originates in God at the very beginning of our spiritual existence. We are spiritually born in intimate communion with God who created us in love. We will also die into the loving arms of God who loves with an everlasting love. We cannot experience this spiritual life with our minds. We have to rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal this spiritual life to our minds through our hearts.
A broken Christian’s vulnerability gives space for the heart. The heart in which God chooses to dwell and in which He also wants to speak to those who come close to the broken Christian. God loves the poor in spirit. He desires to dwell in our brokenness so He can show forth His strength. God desires to speak through the vulnerability of the broken Christian to the world of strength and call Christians to become vulnerable and to offer their brokenness to God in ministry.
Doing things together is more important than doing things alone. We come from a world concerned with doing things on one’s own. Our admitted brokenness can create true community. Our needs and shared vulnerability can make us into a true loving community. With all of our differences and without admitted spiritual brokenness true community is hard to find. Our weaknesses become our spiritual strength and our rallying point.
Where Am I Going
A broken Christian story is my story of weakness, vulnerability and dependency, but also of spiritual strength, authenticity, and giftedness. Can you dare to believe that God’s story about you puts your story in spiritual perspective? Write down your personal story without editing out your vulnerability and brokenness and be willing to tell your story to others so that God’s strength can speak through your spiritual brokenness.
What I know for sure is at the core of my faith is the conviction that I am a beloved child of God. I also know that the Spirit of God blows where it wants. My time in the spiritual wilderness was a time of searching, questioning, and an agonizing time. A time that was extremely lonely and with moments of great uncertainty and ambiguity. The Jesus that I had come to know in my spiritual youth had died along with my old nature. The Jesus I now know is the resurrected Jesus who wants to live through my new nature that Jesus gave me at my spiritual birth. Jesus does this when I present my brokenness to God so that the Holy Spirit can strengthen my new nature and renew my mind to heal my spiritual brokenness so that I can be a broken instrument to shine forth His love through my life.
I am searching for a new spiritual home. I know it cannot be the old type of church I left behind. I do not know what the new spiritual home will look like. It will be a very close knit community of Christians consisting of people from many different backgrounds. This community will enable my spiritual journey to be deepened, the full dimension of which I am not able to articulate. I know that living with the Christians of this community will call me to be a witness to God in a way that I never could before.
It is only in retrospect that I can connect the dots on the timeline of my life and begin to see my sacred history from God’s perspective as God’s story of me.
Although life is short, it is enough time to come to understand where you have been and where you are going. Remember: You belong to God from eternity to eternity. You were loved by God before you were born, you will be loved by God long after you die. Your human lifetime is only a part of your total life in God. The length of time does not matter. This life is just an opportunity for you to say to God:
“I Love You Too”
I am on a journey preordained by God. It was not meant to be experienced alone. You are on a journey also. Let’s go on this journey together. In our admitted brokenness we can help each other as the Holy Spirit leads. God wants to comfort you through me. He also wants to comfort me through you. I will not view you as a ministry project please do not view me as a ministry project! We base our Faith on Jesus Christ. Our source of Hope comes by way of the Holy Spirit. Our source of Love comes from GOD the Father.
I hope what I shared helps you remain or become a wounded healer.
June 29th, 2012 at 11:53 pm
In response to Marianne’s reflection , when I was studying my Clinical Pastoral Education, my clinical hours were to cold call to patients on the wards in a very large public hospital. Many times when visiting patients, offering Pastoral support I would often perceive people feeling lonely and distressed who would respond to me simply saying ‘no thanks I’m alright’ leaving me feeling lonely and useless wondering what am I doing here. But when revisiting some of those people who eventually did want to talk began to realize that just turning up and being there, holding out the sign of hope that there is someone wandering around this hospital who does care. about them can have a dramatic healing effect. When I bring the message of God in the form of hope I sometimes never know the effect I have on people even when rejected.
I know when loneliness overtakes me, it is more a feeling of emptiness, of being suspended in time, I am very good at filling that space, what I usually do is start a new project and become totally committed to it so that the emptiness never gets a look in but now as I have come some way in accepting myself , ‘being comfortable in my own skin” I have become comfortable in the aloneness and see it as a quietness and a space and a chance to be present to the loneliness where all my failures and success can be viewed with equanimity.
Hospitality is where I can invite All into my heart because I know they too carry the wounds of having lived a life and I know my wounds are there and we are not separated by who we often pretend to be. Hospitality for me is like Henri says ” Hospitality asks for the creation of an empty space where guests can find their own souls’. this is so helpful to me as I visit on the hospital wards.
June 30th, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Brynn, your reflection on June 29 resonated in my very being…as if Henri himself was sending me a message. It is so powerful for me I want to cut and paste it and use it for meditation.
Am I allowed to do that?
I too am searching for the faith based community Jimmy describes. Within my present parish I feel isolated and lonely. I do not eel safe to raise questions or challenge the party line of the institutional church delivered in homilies and welcomed by the the others. I continue to believe the essence of my Catholic faith. Partaking in the Eucharist is most important to me. I pray that God opens the path that leads me to my ‘tribe”. I surrender to his will and accept this loneliness and wandering in the spiritual wilderness. I trust in his plan for me while I do the work opening myself to the graces of the Holy Spirit.
Thank you all for your sharing. It is heartening to know that there are kindred spirits out there.
June 30th, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Hi everyone: I was reading another Catholic periodical and stumbled upon this story/anecdote about Henri Nouwen. It struck me, I found it very insightful and powerful so I thought I would share it with everyone in the event you haven’t seen it yourself:
When we value adhering to a schedule more than we value the needs of others, then God’s good people are ill-served.
In this regard, Henri Nouwen once shared an experience of his own
(“Time Enough to Minister,” Leadership, Spring 1982).
Pressed by the demands of teaching at Yale and feeling overwhelmed, Nouwen decided to take a prayer sabbatical at the Trappist Abbey of the Genesee in New York. His “schedule” would consist solely of prayer — no teaching, no counseling, just prayer.
On his second day there, a group of students from a nearby school approached him and requested that he give them a retreat. Nouwen complained to the abbot, “I came here to get away from that type of thing. These students have asked for five meditations — an enormous amount of work and preparation. I don’t want to do it. Why should I spend my sabbatical time preparing all those things?”
“Prepare?” the abbot asked. “You’ve been a Christian for 40 years and a priest for 20 and all these students want is to be a part of your life in God for just a little while.”
What the abbot knew and what Nouwen learned is that disciples of Jesus are called to live in a constant state of being prepared, so that when someone who is drowning comes into our world, we are ready to reach out and help. That’s ministering.
June 30th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Reading this rich posts, I wish I had had more time this month to engage in this online discussion.
As the oldest of five sons in a severely disfunctional family, I knew the lonlinessof not being accepted at home (because my father and mother were incapable of offering that acceptance) and seeking the love, acceptance, and affirmation that I needed at the local parish, in the home of friends, in school. Did any of those things really relieve my lonliness? While I was a college sophomore I met my first wife and “adopted” her family as my family. We were married ten days after graduation and while we were married for 28 years, it was a marriage based on our shared neediness, not on real, mature love. Did that marriage and our five wonderful children relieve my lonliness? During that time, I felt called by the Lord to a closer relationship with him and became very active in the church on the school board, parish, council, and other activities. Did that relieve my lonliness?
It has been in the past 10 years as I coped with the end of my first marriage and the blessing of meeting my current wife and joining a caring Catholic Charismatic covenant community that I was able to recognize and appreciate what St. Augustine said in the 4th Century, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and my heart is restless until it rests in you.” It is by turning to God and then building community based on that foundation that we are able to grow in his love and thrive - that we are able to go “home” and to “be comfortable in our own skin.”
For me, to be comfortable in my own skin or to be at home is to realize and live in a manner that the kingdom of God is within you. In a very real way, we come into the closest contact with God when we look inside ourselves. The 14th Century Dominican Meister Eckhart wrote, “God is at home. It’s we who have gone out for a walk.”
As wounded healers we need to be open and aware of the presence of God in our lives. We need to resist the powerful temptations to seek the world’s substitutes for God: wealth, pleasure, power, and honor or acclaim. To pursue these “things” rather than the will of the Father is to “leave home” (as did the prodigal son). Yet the Father remains ready to welcome us back into his presence in the present moment. All it takes is a choice.
Henri draws our attention to hospitality as the key to life as a wounded healer. Hospitality - welcoming someone into your home, into your life - is something that can only occur inthe present. To be hospitable is to offer someone our presence when they seek it - just as the Lord is always present for us when we seek him.
For me, it is very easy to be distracted by the concerns of the world and to not be present, either to God in my life or to those that I encounter every day. I am often concerned about the problems of the past and the concerns for the future and not truly “present.”
The Talmudic story that Henri told reminded me of the parable of the sheeps and the goats in Matthew 25. Elijah told the Rabbi to look for the Messiah among the poor covered with wounds. And Jesus told the disciples that “whatever you did for one of these least bretheren of mine, you did to me.” (Matt 25:40).
To be hospitable is to do for these least bretheren. And we are all lonely and seeking the Lord. We are all striving for the unity and community that only God can provide. In that sense, we are all “least bretheren” and are called to be hospitable to each other - to be wounded healers as we heal each others wounds and build the kingdom of God.
To those in the United States have a wonderful Independence Day holiday.
Peace and all good
Ray
June 30th, 2012 at 5:03 pm
… lost my comments to the outer space erase…. a shortened 2nd attempt…
This week’s chapter and shared writings have all been a blessing.
I appreciated Debby’s reminder that Christ felt totally abandoned by God, and Elaine’s thought “of the importance of keeping our own spiritual connection going.” and Nancy’s words, “I tried to be their god”. ON PAGE 90 Henri’s idea of counting our brokenness as a gift that cuts through the hope of false gods helps me. And to be set free from both the need to deny my brokenness and the need to fix other people’s loneliness allows me to be more authentic and find real rest.
June 30th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
Hello all,
I am sorry this study is only four chapters!
Brynn, thank you for your gracious facilitating of this study. I have gotten far more out of it than I could have imagined. This is a book to read and reread over and over. Thank you all for your comments, and I treasure the cyber community I have been blessed to participate in.
This chapter has been a tremendous challenge. I recognize for myself the presence of this deep loneliness ever since I was a little girl, often feeling like an alien in my own family. We were not brought up with any form of spirituality, rather good times, parties, and a whole lot of alcohol. As a youngster, I had a longing for the spiritual, wanting to know and be known by God. And now, at 54, decades later and with those same longings from when I was a little girl, I am learning that this loneliness is a precious gift to cherish and protect. I can also start to see how I have looked for that Liberator to make all things well in things and others around me, so I may too be well. To read, “the Liberator is sitting among the poor and the wounds are a sign of hope and today is the day of liberation…a step very few can take,” is invitation to embrace that pain of loneliness and find rest, peace, healing in its presence. I imagine that God has placed in each of us a “God-shaped” hole in our hearts that only He can fill, and this hole by its very nature creates a hunger and thirst. Maybe that hole is called Loneliness.
The challenges of this chapter are also luring to step outside of my own world and offer myself. With the deep grief we have experienced over this past year, I have not had energy nor desire to be around others, and most certainly no want to enter in to other people’s problems. I have been that person in the counselor’s office who has experienced that intense and concentrated withdrawing from him, and he created that very space for hospitality where I could voice absolutely everything I needed to. I have lived this truth, and the healing powers within it are truly God given. To have another person so present to my pain was incredibly healing, and still is.
Jimmy, I liked your challenge in these words:
God desires to speak through the vulnerability of the broken Christian to the world of strength and call Christians to become vulnerable and to offer their brokeness . Although life is short, it is enough time to come to understand where you have been and where you are going. Remember: You belong to God from eternity to eternity. You were loved by God before you were born, you will be loved by God long after you die. Your human lifetime is only a part of your total life in God. The length of time does not matter. This life is just an opportunity for you to say to God:
“I Love You Too”
I had not thought much about God’s desire to speak through the vulnerability of the broken Christian, rather I have wanted levels of personal healing before entering in to those vulnerabilities with others. I have not felt the strength nor desire, and your words challenge me.
And Brynn your reflection shares how being at home in our own skin, (or as Henri says discovering life at the center of our own hearts) takes prayer, practice, discipline and guidance, (or as Henri calls it an intense act of concentration). In it we come to know that “being alive means being loved”. I must confess there is a leap here I do not fully understand. I can only imagine it to mean that as we see and understand the center of our hearts, and our own brokenness, and the love of God within it, we are given eyes to see and understand that same brokenness in others and offer that same love of God within it. The first anniversary of our son’s death is upon us, and we understand and know the depth of his heart now as we never knew before. It just makes us love him more. Is this not a small mirror of how God loves the broken too?
As you say, Jimmy… the God who loves us here and now has loved us from before our birth, and after our death. That love knows no ending. And now is the time to say, “I love you too.”
Thanks everyone!
June 30th, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Brynn I loved what you wrote about being at home in your own skin. Too often we use busyness as way of hiding loneliness. We are so busy helping others to avoid looking at the pain inside us. I know what it’s like to be in crowded conferences serving others and yet feeling so alone. For me it has taken a debilitating illness to stop, I can no longer physically be there for others, and during this time I am learning to live loved. I am on my own 95% of the time, often unable to leave my own house, but for the most part I no longer feel lonely. I know God is with me, and he loves me unconditionally! The hardest part has been not worrying about what other people think of me, especially as I have an illness which most people cannot understand. I have had to learn that what other people think about me is none of my business. I don’t want to be judged therefore I have to learn not to judge others, just see that they are hurting, broken people too and they use their judgements as a way of hiding from their own hurts. The only person we can change is ourselves so we just need to listen to others as passionately as we would like to be heard, encourage and share with them as we feel led but we can’t try and change them. I love what Henri said that we are to live our life as authentically as Christ lived his. We need to learn to be real with ourselves and real with others and that it turn allows them to feel free to be real.
July 1st, 2012 at 3:31 am
I agree with Cheryl… this is a book to be read and re-read over and over. Thank you everyone for your wonderful sharing. It has been so encouraging to be a part of this on-line group. I’m a bit of a poetry freak. Some poets just put things in ways that “hit home” with me so I thought I would share as my last post a poem by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the novel-prize-winning writer who was exiled to a Russian gulag under Stalin and suffered cancer, from which he had not expected to recover while there.
He wrote this prayer after he had been set free:
How easy for me to live with You, O Lord!
How easy for me to believe in You!
When my mind parts in bewilderment
or falters,
when the most intelligent people see no further
than this day’s end
and do not know what must be done tomorrow,
You grant me the certitude
that you exist and that You will take care
that not all the paths of good be closed.
Atop the ridge of earthly fame.
I look back in wonder at the path
which I alone could never have found,
a wondrous path through despair to this point
from which I, too, could transmit to mankind
a reflection of your rays.
And as much as I must still reflect
You will give me.
But as much as I cannot take up
You will have already assigned to others.
July 1st, 2012 at 1:27 pm
In reflecting on the Wounded Healer, I was drawn back to the book Compassion written by Frs. Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison that was the subject of the Lent 2012 Nouwen Society on-line book discussion. Anyone that found the Wounded Healer to be meaningful would benefit from reading Compassion.
Written ten years after the Wounded Healer, Compassion presents a perspective based on Jesus’s words, “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate” (Luke 6:36) and emphasizes the authors deep conviction that through compassion our humanity grows into is fullness. They consider the “call to compassion… as the center of Christian life.”
In Compassion Henri and his co-authors build and expand on the lessons Henri teaches us about ministry in the Wounded Healer. The Hospitality that Henri writes so beautifully about is placed in the context of a God that is Jesus or “God-with-us” living in solidarity with humanity. Henri shows us that God is a compassionate God and that is best exemplified by the obedience of Jesus who listens to his people and responds with unlimited love.
The authors then discuss The Compassionate Life and The Compassionate Way that we are called to live. In these pages they provide a “users guide” to what it means to be hospitable in the way the Henri uses the term in the Wounded Healer. They address many of the same themes including community, displacement from the ordinary and proper place, the need for togetherness, patience, prayer, and action. Each of these elements contribute to our ability to live a compassionate life - the life we are called to live as we serve as wounded healers to those with whom we are journeying towards eternal life.
While I agree that the Wounded Healer is a book to be read and read again, I would suggest that the Wounded Healer in combination with Compassion be considered an essential resource offering guidance on how to live a truly Christian life.
Peace and all good,
Ray