Hope In The Midst Of Despair

Shortly after [my daughter] Hope died, I was at the cosmetics counter buying some mascara. "Will this mascara run down my face when I cry?" I asked.
The girl behind the counter assured me it wouldn't and asked with a laugh in her voice. "Are you going to be crying?"
"Yes," I answered. "I am."
We had Hope for 199 days. We loved her. We enjoyed her richly and shared her with everyone we could. We held her during her seizures. Then we let her go.
The day after we buried Hope, my husband said to me, "You know, I think we expected our faith to make this hurt less, but it doesn't. Our faith gave us an incredible amount of strength and encouragement while we had Hope, and we are comforted by the knowledge that she is in heaven. Our faith keeps us from being swallowed by despair. But I don't think it makes our loss hurt any less."

- Nancy Guthrie in "Holding on to Hope"

A Father's As Well As a Mother's Love

The father in the story of the prodigal son is mother as well. His running out to welcome his son, his embrace and kisses; his offering of the best robe, the ring, and the sandals; and his throwing a party are not the typical behaviour of a distant patriarch. They express so much tenderness, nurturing care, and self-effacing forgiveness that in them we see both motherly and fatherly love fully present.
The perfect love of our heavenly Father includes as well as transcends all the love that a father and mother can have for their children. We may think about the two hands of God embracing us as a mother's hand and a father's hand: one caressing, consoling, and comforting, the other supporting, encouraging, and empowering. We too are called to be father and mother to those who want to come home.

- Henri Nouwen

The Tears of the Father

The father in the story of the prodigal son suffered much. He saw his younger son leave, knowing the disappointments, rejections and abuses facing him. He saw his older son become angry and bitter, and was unable to offer him affection and support. A large part of the father's life has been waiting. He could not force his younger son to come home or his older son to let go of his resentments. Only they themselves could take the initiative to return.
During these long years of waiting the father cried many tears and died many deaths. He was emptied out by suffering. But that emptiness had created a place of welcome for his sons when the time of their return came. We are called to become like that father.

- Henri Nouwen

The Average Person

The captive balloon is obviously not free. And the average person is moored to the bonds of things, to public opinion, to governmental and economic realities, like the captive balloon on its cable. But it is not so obvious to everyone that the drifting "free" balloon, subject to every whim of the wind is not free either.
There is no freedom in being stirred by every opinion, steered by every spirit of the times, governed by every urge of instinct. Mere feeling - reeling, moody mysticism - is a variety of emasculation, but it is not freedom. Freedom is there only where a holy moral imperative and a mature will shows us the way we must steer our lives. "Command yourself, or be a slave forever." As long as you are not master of your self, you are not free.

- Eberhard Arnold

Welcoming Home

How do we welcome home our lost brothers and sisters? By running out to them, embracing them, and kissing them. By clothing them with the best clothes we have and making them our honored guests. By offering them the best food and inviting friends and family for a party. And, most important of all, by not asking for excuses or explanations, only showing our immense joy that they are with us again. (See Luke 15:20-24).
That is being perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. It is forgiving from the heart without a trace of self-righteousness, recrimination, or even curiosity. The past is wiped out. What counts is the here and now, where all that fills our hearts is gratitude for the homecoming of our brothers and sisters.

- Henri Nouwen

Becoming Fathers and Mothers

What are we going to do when we get home? When the two sons of the parable of the prodigal son both have returned to their father, what then? The answer is simple: they have to become fathers themselves. Sons have to become fathers; daughters have to become mothers. Being children of God involves growing up and becoming like God. Jesus doesn't hesitate to say this: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate." (See Matthew 5:48 and Luke 6:36). How? By welcoming home our lost brothers and sisters in the way our Father welcomed us home.

- Henri Nouwen

True Liberation

If our view of ourselves is anything less than being a word spoken forth by God, then our self image is a self-constructed façade - a crust of self...
I have come to realize that the primary work of God's grace in our lives is to liberate us from this destructive bondage to the crust of self in order to shape us into wholeness. God is seeking to create in us a whole new structure of habits, attitudes, and perceptions, of dynamics of personal and corporate relationships, of patterns of reaction and response to the world.
This new structure is one of increasing Christ-likeness. God is seeking to break the crust.

- M. Robert Mulholland Jr. in "Shaped by the Word"

A Lifelong Journey

Going home is a lifelong journey. There are always parts of ourselves that wander off in dissipation or get stuck in resentment. Before we know it we are lost in lustful fantasies or angry ruminations. Our night dreams and daydreams often remind us of our lostness.
Spiritual disciplines such as praying, fasting and caring are ways to help us return home. As we walk home we often realise how long the way is. But let us not be discouraged. Jesus walks with us and speaks to us on the road. When we listen carefully we discover that we are already home while on the way.

- Henri Nouwen

Think Big

All the various movements of the past decades will one day converge in a radical awakening of the masses that leads the way to social justice and to God’s unity - that is to say, to the church, to the kingdom of God, and to community in action. We must set ourselves in the midst of this mighty task and sacrifice ourselves. We must be ready to be consumed in a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to be merged with it completely.
We need to reach the millions who live in cities, the hundreds of thousands in industrial centres, the tens of thousands in medium-sized towns, the thousands in small towns, and the hundreds in villages - all these at once. Like a volcanic eruption, a spiritual revolution needs to spread through the country, to spur people to crucial decisions. People have to recognize the futility of splitting life up into politics, economics, the humanities, and religion. We must be awakened to a life in which all of these things are completely integrated.

- Eberhard Arnold

Surrendering To God

Go off by yourself and, like Jacob on the mountain (Genesis 32:24-28), struggle with God until you are spiritually exhausted. Then, in that time of resignation that follows giving up (because there is nothing left in you with which to carry on the struggle), the Spirit will come. The Spirit will come by grace. When you surrender, it is then that there may come a rushing in of the One who is Totally Other. Then, filled with the Spirit, you will be ready to relate to others in love. You will be able to reach into others and know others in ways that are truly miraculous. You will have, in truth, arrived back at the heart of old-time religion in the midst of our postmodern world.

- Tony Campolo in "Following Jesus Without Embarrassing God"

Coming Home

In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), there are two sons: the younger son, who runs away from home to an alien country, and the older son, who stays home to do his duty. The younger son dissipates himself with alcohol and sex; the older son alienates himself by working hard and dutifully fulfilling all his obligations. Both are lost. Their father grieves over both, because with neither of them does he experience the intimacy he desires.
Both lust and cold obedience can prevent us from being true children of God. Whether we are like the younger son or the older son, we have to come home to the place where we can rest in the embrace of God's unconditional love.

- Henri Nouwen

Whereas the Way...

Christ's will was, and is, to unite. Think how he wept over Jerusalem! Think of his prayer, “That they all might be one.” But people did not and do not want this. Christ said. “I am the Way,” and that is what matters. Not what denomination or church group one belongs to, not social work, not reform, etc.—but the Way. Modern life is so complicated and torn, so distracting and disintegrating. Whereas the Way is simple, light and straight, and unifies the whole of life.

- Kathleen Hasenberg

Taking Up Our Crosses

Jesus says: "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him ... take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). He does not say: "Make a cross" or "Look for a cross." Each of us has a cross to carry. There is no need to make one or look for one. The cross we have is hard enough for us! But are we willing to take it up, to accept it as our cross?
Maybe we can't study, maybe we are handicapped, maybe we suffer from depression, maybe we experience conflict in our families, maybe we are victims of violence or abuse. We didn't choose any of it, but these things are our crosses. We can ignore them, reject them, refuse them or hate them. But we can also take up these crosses and follow Jesus with them.

- Henri Nouwen

On The Journey Toward Becoming More Merciful

It was years ago now. I was eating out with an elderly friend and not being as attentive as I might have been to her low-grade unhappiness. In fact, to be frank, I was irritable and impatient. Then my eye caught an even more frail elder leaving his table and simultaneously scattering a handful of change across the floor. Clumsy, noisy, inconvenient to the rushed lunch crowd and the waiters serving them. But another diner, on her way past, simply bent down, gathered the change, offered it to the man, and departed without a word.
In a flash I saw my coldness at that moment, and how very near us mercy is. I know that I too act with such mercy, yet when I am caught in impatience or other dark emotions, my self-imposed exile from God's commonwealth of loving and knowing I am beloved puts me in a realm where I can even forget that mercy is possible.
But no act of kindness is insignificant. We can reveal God's commonwealth to one another without realizing that we are doing so. And when we are in exile, our darkness is, in reality, only a flash away from the love and mercy that we are always being called to live in. May our eyes and hearts open more and more to that call.

Susan M. S. Brown

A Major League Perspective

The thing about Christian athletes is that we care about how we look to other people, but we want the main focus to be on Jesus, not on ourselves. We're not perfect. We will screw up, but we do have perspective. We know who we are. We know we have to be responsible; we know our purpose is to serve God.

- Russ Ortiz, MLB Pitcher

What Grace Cannot Prevent

The spirit of the Gospels has not been handed down in a pure state from one Christian generation to the next. To undergo suffering and death joyfully was from the very beginning considered a sign of grace in the Christian martyrs — but grace cannot do more for a human being than it could for Christ.
Those who believe that God himself, once he became a man, could not face the harshness of destiny without a long tremor of anguish, should understand that those who give the impression of having risen to a higher plane, who seem superior to ordinary human misery, are those who resort to the aids of illusion, exaltation, and fanaticism to conceal the harshness of destiny from their own eyes.
The person who does not wear the armour of the lie cannot experience force without being touched by it to the very soul. Grace can prevent this touch from corrupting him, but it cannot spare him the wound. Having forgotten this all too well, Christian tradition only rarely recovers that simplicity that renders so poignant every sentence in the story of the Passion.

- Simone Weil

The Gospel Of Grace

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God..." (Ephesians 2:8 NRSV)

Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually-abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last "trick" whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school; the deathbed convert who for decades had his cake and ate it, broke every law of God and man, wallowed in lust and raped the earth.
"But how?" we ask. Then the voice says, "They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
There they are. There we are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to the faith.
My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.

- Brennan Manning in "The Ragamuffin Gospel"

Downward Mobility

The society in which we live suggests in countless ways that the way to go is up. Making it to the top, entering the limelight, breaking the record - that's what draws attention, gets us on the front page of the newspaper, and offers us the rewards of money and fame.
The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets, and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life.

- Henri Nouwen

To Absorb Is Better

The rare moment is not the moment when there is something worth looking at, but the moment when we are capable of seeing - Joseph Wood Krutch

In the fields and woods more than anything else all things come to those who wait, because all things are on the move, and are sure sooner or later to come your way. To absorb a thing is better than to learn it, and we absorb what we enjoy. We learn things at school; we absorb them in the fields and woods. When we look upon Nature with fondness and appreciation, she meets us halfway and takes a deeper hold on us than when studiously conned. Hence I say the way of knowledge of Nature is the way of love and enjoyment, and is more surely found in the open air than in the school room or the laboratory.

- John Burroughs

Forever The Evangelist

My mind tells me I ought to get out there and go, but I just can't do it. But I'll preach until there is no breath left in my body. I was called by God, and until God tells me to retire, I cannot. Whatever strength I have, whatever time God lets me have, is going to be dedicated to doing the work of an evangelist, as long as I live.

- Billy Graham

Spiritual Courage

Courage is connected with taking risks. Jumping the Grand Canyon on a motorbike, coming over Niagara Falls in a barrel, walking on a tightrope between the towers of New York's World Trade Centre, or crossing the ocean in a rowboat are called courageous acts because people risk their lives by doing these things. But none of these daredevil acts comes from the centre of our being. They all come from the desire to test our physical limits and to become famous and popular.
Spiritual courage is something completely different. It is following the deepest desires of our hearts at the risk of losing fame and popularity. It asks of us the willingness to lose our temporal lives in order to gain eternal life.

- Henri Nouwen

The Earth As It Is

Is it possible to live in peace and happiness when you know that two-thirds of human beings are suffering, hungry and poor? To be human we have to have compassion. This solidarity is really the defining factor of our humanity and is gradually being lost in a culture of material values. It’s not only the cry of the poor we must listen to but also the cry of the earth. The earth and human beings are both threatened. We must do something to change the situation...
There won’t be a Noah’s Ark to save only some of us. To meet people’s fundamental concerns change is needed. The world as it is does not offer the majority of humanity life but rather hell. I believe that change is possible, because I cannot accept a God who could remain indifferent to this world, but only one who cares about the poor and the suffering.

- Leonardo Boff

A Courageous Life

"Have courage," we often say to one another. Courage is a spiritual virtue. The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means "heart". A courageous act is an act coming from the heart. A courageous word is a word arising from the heart. The heart, however, is not just the place where our emotions are located. The heart is the centre of our being, the centre of all thoughts, feelings, passions, and decisions.
When the flesh - the lived human experience - becomes word, community can develop. When we say, "Let me tell you what we saw. Come and listen to what we did. Sit down and let me explain to you what happened to us. Wait until you hear whom we met," we call people together and make our lives into lives for others. The word brings us together and calls us into community. When the flesh becomes word, our bodies become part of a body of people.

- Henri Nouwen

Words That Create Community

The word is always a word for others. Words need to be heard. When we give words to what we are living, these words need to be received and responded to. A speaker needs a listener. A writer needs a reader.
When the flesh - the lived human experience - becomes word, community can develop. When we say, "Let me tell you what we saw. Come and listen to what we did. Sit down and let me explain to you what happened to us. Wait until you hear whom we met," we call people together and make our lives into lives for others. The word brings us together and calls us into community. When the flesh becomes word, our bodies become part of a body of people.

- Henri Nouwen

Intelligent Design

Why is there something rather than nothing? When you think about it, there's nothing that says that it has to be. If you start with that question, then I think the very next question becomes, Is this kind of world more likely to have happened by accident or by design?... It's amazing that we wouldn't for a minute look at objects of everyday life, the television in our room or a vase on the table and say, how did that come about? We know it came about because of some kind of intelligence and some kind of design by a person or a committee of persons. But when it comes to this unbelievable universe, we can be talked into thinking that it could have happened by chance.
The creation of the universe is absolutely amazing, from my point of view, and that's a bias probably because I'm a physician. I find that the human body is even in some ways more amazing. And when you get down to the structure of DNA and the brain, in particular, it turns out to be the most amazing structure that we could ever possibly imagine.
To give you one little example - the compacting ability of DNA. All the information needed to run each of us weighs less than a few trillionths of a gram. And here's another little factoid that just blows my mind. If we were to collect all of the information in DNA for all the organisms that have ever existed on this planet, it could fit into the size of a grain of salt.

- Dr. Timothy Johnson, ABC News Medical Editor, in an interview in Christianity Today, May 24, 2004

Flesh Become Word

The word must become flesh, but the flesh also must become word. It is not enough for us, as human beings, just to live. We also must give words to what we are living. If we do not speak what we are living, our lives lose their vitality and creativity. When we see a beautiful view, we search for words to express what we are seeing. When we meet a caring person, we want to speak about that meeting. When we are sorrowful or in great pain, we need to talk about it. When we are surprised by joy, we want to announce it!
Through the word, we appropriate and internalize what we are living. The word makes our experience truly human.

- Henri Nouwen

Rooting Out Bitterness

When I was a kid, we lived in a rural community that specialized in growing tobacco. My first summer job was weeding the crop, and most of the time we would walk the seemingly endless rows with a hoe, scuffing out weeds in relative comfort. But inevitably when we got close to the fence, we ran into thistles - hundreds and hundreds of little thistles. They looked harmless enough, but you couldn't scuff them out with a hoe; you had to get down on your knees and pull those prickly little things out by the roots. We often thought it would be far easier to just let them stay there. After all, they weren't very big. But the farmer knew if we left them until harvest time, when we reached down to get a handful of tobacco, we would come away with a palm full of thorns.
I have found that in life, bitterness is a lot like those little thistles. We can push away hurts and pains, but the only way to get rid of bitterness is to fall to our knees and root it out through prayer. It is hard work, but if we leave a little bitterness in our hearts, it grows until it does real damage to someone.

- Alan Beck

Words That Come From the Heart

Words that do not become flesh in us remain "just words." They have no power to affect our lives. If someone says, "I love you," without any deep emotion, the words do more harm than good. But if these same words are spoken from the heart, they can create new life.
It is important that we keep in touch with the source of our words. Our great temptation is to become "pleasers," people who say the right words to please others but whose words have no roots in their interior lives. We have to keep making sure our words are rooted in our hearts. The best way to do that is in prayerful silence.

- Henri Nouwen

Real Love

Let everyone understand that the real love of God does not consist in tear-shedding, nor in that sweetness and tenderness for which we often long, just because they console us, but in serving God by serving those around us, in justice, fortitude of soul, and humility.

- Teresa of Avila

The Meaning Of Life

"What is the meaning of life?" asked the student of the rabbi.
The rabbi replied, "That's such a wonderful question, why would you want to exchange it for an answer?"

- Philip Yancey in "The Bible Jesus Read"

Words That Become Flesh

Words are important. Without them our actions lose meaning. And without meaning we cannot live. Words can offer perspective, insight, understanding, and vision. Words can bring consolation, comfort, encouragement and hope. Words can take away fear, isolation, shame, and guilt. Words can reconcile, unite, forgive, and heal. Words can bring peace and joy, inner freedom and deep gratitude. Words, in short, can carry love on their wings. A word of love can be the greatest act of love. That is because when our words become flesh in our own lives and the lives of others, we can change the world.
Jesus is the word made flesh. In him speaking and acting were one.

- Henri Nouwen

On The Journey Towards Intimacy

The journey toward intimacy is perhaps the longest, most difficult journey we take as human beings. While the dictionary defines intimacy as "close familiarity or association and nearness in friendship," intimacy also requires us to stand naked in front of another human being with all of our warts and flaws. We are the too large belly hiding a waistline that used to measure eighteen inches around, declaring, "This is me. This is who I am. I am worried about you rejecting me. I am worried I have shown you too much of me. This is me. This is who I am."
Even further, intimacy is the ability to share our heart and soul with another; it is truly taking down our defenses just as we "take off our clothes." Intimacy is a tremendous risk for some, less so for others, but never inconsequential. It is intertwined with trust, though sometimes we trust the wrong people, who hand our trust back to us battered and broken. Nevertheless, intimacy is definitely resilient, and we stay on the journey, looking for intimacy in our soul mates, our families and our dearest friends. This journey requires us to look deeply and examine our thoughts and feelings from the inside out. This is the toughest part, but the results can lead us to accept and be our best friends and to love and embrace our families. It is on this journey that God tells us to stay, hard as it is, and listen to our heart and those of others. God speaks. Hearts speak. Our journey toward intimacy helps us to hear them clearly.

- Shirley K. Lewis

Liberty Worth Having

How watchful we must be to keep the crystal well that we were made, clear! - that it not be made turbid by our contact with the world, so that it will not reflect objects. What other liberty is there worth having, if we have not freedom and peace in our minds - if our inmost and most private man is but a sour and turbid pool? If you would avoid uncleanness and all the sins, work earnestly, though it be at cleaning a stable.

- Henry David Thoreau

The Unique Role Of The Church

The world can do almost anything as well or better than the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.

- Gordon MacDonald

Growing into the Truth We Speak

Can we only speak when we are fully living what we are saying? If all our words had to cover all our actions, we would be doomed to permanent silence! Sometimes we are called to proclaim God's love even when we are not yet fully able to live it. Does that mean we are hypocrites? Only when our own words no longer call us to conversion. Nobody completely lives up to his or her own ideals and visions. But by proclaiming our ideals and visions with great conviction and great humility, we may gradually grow into the truth we speak. As long as we know that our lives always will speak louder than our words, we can trust that our words will remain humble.

- Henri Nouwen

The Cause of Unhappiness

If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.

- Anthony de Mello

Encounter With Christ

As we shared together our feelings about the study groups, we realized that we were not meeting together each week for an intellectual exercise: something very real and significant was taking place. We were coming to know that the Christian faith is not primarily an ethic; it is not the struggle to do good or be good, but an encounter with Christ, of which morality and ethical living are by-products.

- Harold R. Fray, Jr. in "The Spirit Making New"

Right Living and Right Speaking

To be a witness for God is to be a living sign of God's presence in the world. What we live is more important than what we say, because the right way of living always leads to the right way of speaking. When we forgive our neighbours from our hearts, our hearts will speak forgiving words. When we are grateful, we will speak grateful words, and when we are hopeful and joyful, we will speak hopeful and joyful words.
When our words come too soon and we are not yet living what we are saying, we easily give double messages. Giving double messages - one with our words and another with our actions - makes us hypocrites. May our lives give us the right words and may our words lead us to the right life.

- Henri Nouwen

For the Longest Day

Love the earth and the sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God.

- Walt Whitman

The Fruit of the Spirit

How does the Spirit of God manifest itself through us? Often we think that to witness means to speak up in defense of God. This idea can make us very self-conscious. We wonder where and how we can make God the topic of our conversations and how to convince our families, friends, neighbors, and colleagues of God's presence in their lives. But this explicit missionary endeavour often comes from an insecure heart and, therefore, easily creates divisions.
The way God's Spirit manifests itself most convincingly is through its fruits: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Galatians 5:22). These fruits speak for themselves. It is therefore always better to raise the question "How can I grow in the Spirit?" than the question "How can I make others believe in the Spirit?"

We Are the Glory of God

Living a spiritual life is living a life in which our spirits and the Spirit of God bear a joint witness that we belong to God as God's beloved children, (see Romans 8:16). This witness involves every aspect of our lives. Paul says: "Whatever you eat, then, or drink, and whatever else you do, do it all for the glory of God" (Romans 10:31). And we are the glory of God when we give full visibility to the freedom of the children of God.
When we live in communion with God's Spirit, we can only be witnesses, because wherever we go and whomever we meet, God's Spirit will manifest itself through us.

- Henri Nouwen

Witnesses of Love

How do we know that we are infinitely loved by God when our immediate surroundings keep telling us that we'd better prove our right to exist?
The knowledge of being loved in an unconditional way, before the world presents us with its conditions, cannot come from books, lectures, television programs, or workshops. This spiritual knowledge comes from people who witness to God's love for us through their words and deeds. These people can be close to us but they can also live far away or may even have lived long ago. Their witness announces the truth of God's love and calls us to act in accordance with it.

- Henri Nouwen

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

- Langston Hughes

Men And Their Families

Men, it is past time that our families knew their place in our lives. It is time to take action, even extreme action if necessary. Our families don't want our wealth, our gifts, our prestige, or our applause. They want US. They want to know that, other than God, they are the most important thing in our lives.

- Ronnie W. Floyd in "The Meaning of a Man"

Focused On God

When our lives are focused on God, awe and wonder lead us to worship God, filling our inner being with a fullness we would never have thought possible. Awe prepares the way in us for the power of God to transform us and this transformation of our inner attitudes can only take place when awe leads us in turn to wonder, admiration, reverence, surrender, and obedience toward God.

- James Houston in "The Transforming Power of Prayer"

Doing Love

Often we speak about love as if it is a feeling. But if we wait for a feeling of love before loving, we may never learn to love well. The feeling of love is beautiful and life-giving, but our loving cannot be based in that feeling. To love is to think, speak, and act according to the spiritual knowledge that we are infinitely loved by God and called to make that love visible in this world.
Mostly we know what the loving thing to do is. When we "do" love, even if others are not able to respond with love, we will discover that our feelings catch up with our acts.

- Henri Nouwen

Morphing Time

"It's morphing time."... This little word "morph" has a long history. It actually comes from one of the richest Greek words in the New Testament... "Morphoo" means "the inward and real formation of the essential nature of a person." It was the term used to describe the formation and growth of an embryo in a mother's body.
Paul used this word in his letter to the Galatians: "... until Christ is formed in you." (Galatians 4:19) He agonized until Christ should be born in those people, until they should express His character and goodness in their whole being. Paul said they -- like us -- are in a kind of spiritual gestation process. We are pregnant with possibilities of spiritual growth and moral beauty so great that they cannot be adequately described as anything less than the formation of Christ in our very lives.

- John Ortberg in "The Life You've Always Wanted"

Jesus is Poor

Jesus, the Blessed One, is poor. The poverty of Jesus is much more than an economic or social poverty. Jesus is poor because he freely chose powerlessness over power, vulnerability over defensiveness, dependency over self-sufficiency. As the great "Song of Christ" so beautifully expresses: "He ... did not count equality with God something to be grasped. But he emptied himself, ... becoming as human beings are" (Philippians 2:6-7). This is the poverty of spirit that Jesus chose to live.
Jesus calls us who are blessed as he is to live our lives with that same poverty.

- Henri Nouwen

They will know one another...

The humble, meek, merciful, and just are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the mask they will know one another, though the diverse liveries they wear here make them strangers.

- William Penn

On The Journey Towards Intimacy

I am a father, and my life has been richly blessed by my three sons, David (24), Kevin (22) and Patrick (19).
Recently Patrick cut a "Family Circus" comic out of the paper for me. In it P.J. (a young boy) says to his grandmother, "You're a better story reader than Daddy. He skips pages." This brought a big smile to my face as I remembered the countless nights I read to Patrick as part of his bedtime routine. I can recall the exact night the proverbial lightbulb went on and he figured out that I was indeed skipping pages. I also remember the night he decided that I didn't need to tuck him into bed anymore. This was for me a sad and necessary night as he entered the long tunnel of adolescence, when fathers are not as obviously appreciated.
Another of my favorite memories is my three teenage sons' advice when I was about to preach my first weeklong retreat. David said, "I just hope you're leaving the van at home." Kevin's response was, "I can't believe people would pay $400 to listen to you for a whole week. For that kind of money, I would do it myself. I've heard it all before." Then Patrick spoke up: "Dad, try not to be yourself."
Today's reality is different again, with my sons all young adults who continue to ask me to change and grow. In the end they will discover what I did, especially after my own dad died-that fathers are in their sons in ways that can take a lifetime to know, claim and appreciate.

- Joe Egan

Small Steps of Love

How can we choose love when we have experienced so little of it? We choose love by taking small steps of love every time there is an opportunity. A smile, a handshake, a word of encouragement, a phone call, a card, an embrace, a kind greeting, a gesture of support, a moment of attention, a helping hand, a present, a financial contribution, a visit ... all these are little steps toward love.
Each step is like a candle burning in the night. It does not take the darkness away, but it guides us through the darkness. When we look back after many small steps of love, we will discover that we have made a long and beautiful journey.

- Henri Nouwen

Choosing Love

How can someone ever trust in the existence of an unconditional divine love when most, if not all, of what he or she has experienced is the opposite of love - fear, hatred, violence, and abuse?
They are not condemned to be victims! There remains within them, hidden as it may seem, the possibility to choose love. Many people who have suffered the most horrendous rejections and been subject to the most cruel torture are able to choose love. By choosing love they become witnesses not only to enormous human resiliency but also to the divine love that transcends all human loves. Those who choose, even on a small scale, to love in the midst of hatred and fear are the people who offer true hope to our world.

- Henri Nouwen

The Only True Lamp

Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. Tomorrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp - all others but liars!

- Herman Melville

The Spirit's Power

The work of the Lord is done not primarily by human effort or ingenuity - although God uses these - but by the power of His Spirit. Those who wish to rise above the status of the Lord's assistants by establishing their own empires and demanding allegiance to themselves will not accomplish the Lord's work. Those who endeavour to succeed without the resources of the Spirit will be doomed to fail. But those who humbly, joyfully, and willingly make themselves available to the Lord for all that He has in mind and who keep their lives open to the full flow of His Spirit's power will assist the Lord's work to its glorious consummation.

- Stuart Briscoe in "Daily Study Bible for Men"

Sometimes

Sometimes a thunderbolt will shoot from a clear sky; and sometimes, into the midst of a peaceful family – without warning of gathered storm above or slightest tremble of earthquake beneath – will fall a terrible fact, and from that moment everything is changed. The air is thick with cloud, and cannot weep itself clear. There may come a gorgeous sunset, though.

- George Macdonald

The Source of All Love

Without the love of our parents, sisters, brothers, spouses, lovers, and friends, we cannot live. Without love we die. Still, for many people this love comes in a very broken and limited way. It can be tainted by power plays, jealousy, resentment, vindictiveness, and even abuse. No human love is the perfect love our hearts desire, and sometimes human love is so imperfect that we can hardly recognise it as love.
In order not to be destroyed by the wounds inflicted by that imperfect human love, we must trust that the source of all love is God's unlimited, unconditional, perfect love, and that this love is not far away from us but is the gift of God's Spirit dwelling within us.

- Henri Nouwen

Empowered to Receive Love

The Spirit reveals to us not only that God is "Abba, Father" but also that we belong to God as his beloved children. The Spirit thus restores in us the relationship from which all other relationships derive their meaning.
Abba is a very intimate word. The best translation for it is: "Daddy." The word Abba expresses trust, safety, confidence, belonging, and most of all intimacy. It does not have the connotation of authority, power, and control, that the word Father often evokes. On the contrary, Abba implies an embracing and nurturing love. This love includes and infinitely transcends all the love that comes to us from our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, spouses, and lovers. It is the gift of the Spirit.

- Henri Nouwen

Empowered to Call God "Abba"

Calling God "Abba, Father" is different from giving God a familiar name. Calling God "Abba" is entering into the same intimate, fearless, trusting, and empowering relationship with God that Jesus had. That relationship is called Spirit, and that Spirit is given to us by Jesus and enables us to cry out with him, "Abba, Father."
Calling God "Abba, Father" (see Roman 8:15; Galatians 4:6) is a cry of the heart, a prayer welling up from our innermost beings. It has nothing do with naming God but everything to do with claiming God as the source of who we are. This claim does not come from any sudden insight or acquired conviction; it is the claim that the Spirit of Jesus makes in communion with our spirits. It is the claim of love.

- Henri Nouwen

The World Is Our Parish

I want to suggest that the cutting edge of mission in our time, especially for churches in the West, is to reclaim John Wesley's vision that "the world is our parish." Wesley came by it naturally, because Christianity is a world-embracing religion.
+ It is a faith founded on the presuppositions that God created the whole world and pronounced it good.
+ It is a movement whose call is understood in terms of the call of Abraham and Sarah to be a blessing to all the nations.
+ It is a community of moral discourse centered in the prophets who reminded the Israelites and who remind us that justice and righteousness are at the heart of what God calls us to be about.
+ It is a faith centered in John's announcement that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son (John 3:16).
+ It is a witnessing fellowship centered in Jesus Christ who gave us the Great Commission to go into all the world and to make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:16-20).
+ It is a church, born at Pentecost, only when people are gathered together from every language and tongue and nation.
+ It is a faith community that sent the disciples out to turn the world upside down for the Gospel (Acts 17:6).

- Clifton Kirkpatrick in "Perspectives", February 2005

Empowered to Be

Who are we? Are we what we do? Are we what others say about us? Are we the power we have? It often seems that way in our society. But the Spirit of Jesus given to us reveals our true spiritual identities. The Spirit reveals that we belong not to a world of success, fame, or power but to God. The world enslaves us with fear; the Spirit frees us from that slavery and restores us to the true relationship. That is what Paul means when he says: "All who are guided by the Spirit of God are sons [daughters] of God, for what you received was not the spirit of slavery to bring you back into fear; you received the spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry out, 'Abba, Father!'" (Romans 8:15).
Who are we? We are God's beloved sons and daughters!

- Henri Nouwen

The Opportunity of Suffering

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity - even under the most difficult circumstances - to add a deeper meaning to his life. He may remain brave, dignified, and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

- Viktor Frankl

Empowered to Pray

Prayer is the gift of the Spirit. Often we wonder how to pray, when to pray, and what to pray. We can become very concerned about methods and techniques of prayer. But finally it is not we who pray but the Spirit who prays in us.
Paul says: "The Spirit ... comes to help us in our weakness, for, when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words; and he who can see into all hearts knows what the Spirit means because the prayers that the Spirit makes for God's holy people are always in accordance with the mind of God" (Romans 8:26-27). These words explain why the Spirit is called "the Consoler."

- Henri Nouwen

The Road Home

It was a warm Saturday afternoon. A Carolina breeze was steadily moving through the long grass and the proud, full branches. I was driving home, back to the little corner of the world where I grew up. I was en route to a modest house on a corner lot bordered by pine trees, vegetable gardens, and neighbours who still bake casseroles for each other.
I was thinking that when I arrive, my dad (most likely atop his newly painted tractor) will head across the freshly mowed lawn. He'll hug me long and hard until the back door slams. My mom will reach for me, smiling, and announce, "I've a fresh pitcher of iced tea. Who's ready for a glass?"...
What really matters is home. This is the stuff I am made of. This is what is important to me.
We are all on a homeward journey. God patiently plans our routes and polices our perils. He watches us manoeuvre through detours and treacherous places. He even sees us make an occasional wrong turn then keep going anyway.
But always He waits. Long ago He paved the way and marked the direction for us to come to Him. He prepared a place of rest that is beyond the reaches of our imaginations - a welcome centre built by His own hand.

- Janet Pachal in "The Good Road"

Like a Butterfly

It dawns on me more and more how trivial and short our lifespan is. It is like smoke; like a butterfly - it passes so quickly, flying away. Nobody, no one can bring back wasted years. One wishes that one would have always lived with eternity in mind.

- Emmy Arnold

Empowered to Speak

The Spirit that Jesus gives us empowers us to speak. Often when we are expected to speak in front of people who intimidate us, we are nervous and self-conscious. But if we live in the Spirit, we don't have to worry about what to say. We will find ourselves ready to speak when the need is there. "When they take you before ... authorities, do not worry about how to defend yourselves or what to say, because when the time comes, the Holy Spirit will teach you what you should say" (Luke 12:11-12).
We waste much of our time in anxious preparation. Let's claim the truth that the Spirit that Jesus gave us will speak in us and speak convincingly.

- Henri M Nouwen

On The Journey Towards Intimacy

It's taken more than half my life to understand the meaning of true intimacy. For years I understood intimacy only in sexual terms. As I have matured spiritually (an ongoing journey), I have come to understand intimacy in a more comprehensive, life- sustaining way. I count among my most precious gifts the gift of intimacy that I share and receive among soul friends and confidants. This intimacy is the freedom to speak, from the core of my being, my joys and sorrows, my accomplishments and failures. I recognize this as a monumental gift from God.
Once while doing outreach with the homeless in Los Angeles, I learned that a single loving action shared with a stranger can be as intimate and transforming as that received from a trusted friend. The depth of our intimacy with those around us is a reflection of the depth of our relationship with God. Intimacy with another human being on any level, be it a brief encounter with a homeless person or a lifelong relationship, is an encounter with the divine presence inherent in each human being.
Mother Teresa taught that the greatest poverty in the world today is the poverty of despair and loneliness, the poverty of not being loved, of not having intimate, loving relationships with others. When I reflect on the richness of my life in terms of the love and affirmation I receive and give, I know I live a privileged life.

- Victoria S. Schmidt

Tapas - Suffering

If a newborn child does not cry out and scream, then it must be slapped until it does. No one has joy in slapping a child - only the longing that it makes full use of its lungs and draws in life-giving air. So in perfect love, God may strike us with blows and stings of pain so that the breath of prayer flows freely through the lungs of our souls. This is the only way we can become strong and fit for eternal life.
Look at the pearl. A pearl is a product of pain and suffering. Tormented by some foreign matter against its soft flesh, the oyster responds by embracing the irritant and transforming it into an object of great beauty. The creation of the pearl not only provides relief to the oyster but is also a source of wonder and pleasure to many others. But beware! The unique lustre of the pearl can be easily destroyed. Ink or oils can contaminate and destroy its beauty. Pearls laid in ancient tombs often decay with the corpse of their owners; the dust of the pearls is then mingled with the dust of the dead.
Spiritual life - like the pearl - grows out of pain and suffering. And even when the pain has been transformed into a thing of beauty, the lustre of our spiritual lives can easily become contaminated and decay.
Thousands of years of heat and pressure come to bear on black carbon before it is transformed into a precious diamond. Even then, diamonds do not dazzle unless they have first been cut. When cut and polished, then the rays of the sun make them shine with wonderful colors. Scientists may manufacture artificial diamonds in laboratories, but careful examination exposes their inferiority. Likewise, we cannot attain spiritual perfection without passing through pain and suffering.

- Sadhu Sundar Singh

Seva - Service

There are many people who waste precious chances to serve God and their fellow human beings. They should rouse themselves and make full use of the time that is given to them. Once a hunter picked up some pretty stones by a river in the jungle. He used them to shoot at birds with his slingshot, and so one by one they disappeared into the water and were lost.
Some time later, he was in a city and wandered through the market absent-mindedly tossing and catching the one stone he still had left. A jeweller caught sight of it, marvelled at such a precious gem and offered to buy it for several thousand rupees. When the hunter recognized the value of his stone, he cried out: "Woe is me! I have been carelessly shooting gems into the river. I could have been a millionaire. But thank God I have saved at least this one."
Every day of our lives is like a precious diamond. We may have wasted countless days already in idle and selfish pursuits, so that they are now lost in the depths of the past.
But let us at least awake now, see the value of the days that remain and use them to acquire spiritual wealth. If we use them in selfless service to God and if we use them to warn others who are still frivolously throwing away their days in pursuit of fleeting pleasures, then we will gain the boundless treasure of heavenly bliss.

- Sadhu Sundar Singh

Karma – Bondage

People may not even be aware of their mortal danger. They are like the hunter who caught sight of a honeycomb on the branch of a tree overhanging a river. Catching sight of the honey, he forgot everything else and quickly climbed up. The honey was sweet and he was so enchanted by its flavour that he did not notice the alligators waiting in the stream below. Nor did he see that around the foot of the tree, wolves had gathered. Worst of all, he didn't notice that the tree itself was infested with termites and was not strong enough to bear his weight.
While he was still enjoying the honey, the tree fell and the hunter fell prey to the alligators. So too, the human spirit enjoys for a time the pleasant but fleeting delights of the senses, forgetting that the world is like a jungle fraught with dangers of every kind. Sin gnaws at the very foundation of our lives, threatening to fling us to our spiritual deaths.
The evil of this world lures us with clever words and beguiling enticements like certain snakes that fascinate small birds with their glittering eyes until they can devour them.
Or think of the moth that gives no thought to the burning, destructive power of the fire. Fascinated by the flashing brilliance of the flame, it rushes to its own death. Likewise we often see only the allurements of the material world, seeking quick gratification of our own urges, and so rush headlong into spiritual death.
Once in the depth of winter, a bird of prey was busy feasting on a corpse that was floating toward a waterfall. When the bird came near the falls he wanted to leave the corpse and escape. But his claws were frozen to it and he could not fly away. He fell into the roaring waters and died a miserable death. Likewise, if we allow sin to numb our consciences, we become powerless to escape death and danger ahead, no matter how we struggle to escape.
- Sadhu Sundar Singh

Contemplation

Dolphins can live in the deepest water without danger because they regularly come to the surface and take in the air that sustains them. We, too, must rise in prayer into the spiritual realm. To pray is to breathe in God's life-giving spirit that gives life and peace, even in this world.
The new-born child needs no instruction in drinking, but instinctively turns to its mother's breast for nourishment. For her part, the mother withholds no good gift from her child, but still the child cannot receive the mother's milk without effort. In the same way, we are carried at God's breast, but we must turn to God in prayer for the spiritual milk that sustains our souls.
The root tips of trees are so sensitive and responsive that they instinctively turn away from places where there is no nourishment and spread themselves instead in places where they can drink in moisture and life.
I have seen green and fruitful trees standing in the middle of a dry and barren desert. These trees survive and flourish because their roots have driven down and discovered hidden streams of flowing water.
Some people live in the midst of evil and misery but still radiate joy and lead fruitful lives. Through prayer, the hidden roots of their faith have reached down to the source of living water. They draw from it energy and life to bear spiritual fruit. If we lead active lives of prayer, we will also gain the spiritual discernment to turn away from illusion and evil and to find the truth we need for life.

- Sadhu Sundar Singh

The Divine Presence (Darshana)

The story is told of a poor grass cutter who found a beautiful stone in the jungle. He had often heard of people finding valuable diamonds and thought this must be one. He took it to a jeweler and showed it to him with delight. Being a kind and sympathetic man, the jeweler knew that if he bluntly told the grass cutter that his stone was worthless glass, the man would either refuse to believe it or else fall into a state of depression. So instead, the jeweler offered the grass cutter some work in his shop so that he might become better acquainted with precious stones and their value.
Meanwhile, the man kept his stone safely locked away in a strongbox. Several weeks later, the jeweler encouraged the man to bring out his own stone and examine it. As soon as he took it out of the chest and looked at it more closely, he immediately saw that it was worthless. His disappointment was great, but he went to the jeweler and said: "I thank you that you did not destroy my hope but aided me instead to see my mistake on my own. If you will have me, I will stay with you and faithfully serve you, as you are a good and kind master."
In the same way, God leads back to truth those who have wandered into error. When they recognize the truth for themselves, they gladly and joyfully give themselves in obedient service.

- Sadhu Sundar Singh

Eternity (Amrita)

The fitness of our hearts and thoughts to receive God's spirit is like that of violin strings. If they are properly tuned, in harmony with one another, then the touch of the bow produces beautiful music. If not, then there is only discord. Whenever our hearts are truly ready to receive God's spirit, they will produce heavenly airs and joyous harmonies - both in this life and in the spiritual world.
Once a poor beggar sat for twenty-one years on top of a buried treasure without knowing it. He burned so hotly with desire for money that he even hoarded the pennies he received. Yet, he finally died in utter poverty. Because the greedy man sat so long in that one spot, a rumor arose that he had hidden something valuable there. So the governor had the place excavated and the hidden treasure chest was found, filled with precious gems. The greedy beggar died in ignorance of the wealth that lay a few inches under him, and in the end the riches went instead into the royal treasury. God's promise of bliss is very near to us - in our mouths and in our hearts.

- Sadhu Sundar Singh

Devotion

Once, as I traveled through the Himalayas, there was a great forest fire. Everyone was frantically trying to fight the fire, but I noticed a group of men standing and looking up into a tree that was about to go up in flames. When I asked them what they were looking at, they pointed up at a nest full of young birds. Above it, the mother bird was circling wildly in the air and calling out warnings to her young ones. There was nothing she or we could do, and soon the flames started climbing up the branches.
As the nest caught fire, we were all amazed to see how the mother bird reacted. Instead of flying away from the flames, she flew down and settled on the nest, covering her little ones with her wings. The next moment, she and her nestlings were burned to ashes. None of us could believe our eyes. I turned to those standing by and said: "We have witnessed a truly marvelous thing. God created that bird with such love and devotion, that she gave her life trying to protect her young. If her small heart was so full of love, how unfathomable must be the love of her Creator. That is the love that brought him down from heaven to become man. That is the love that made him suffer a painful death for our sake."

- Sadhu Sundar Singh

The Power of the Spirit

In and through Jesus we come to know God as a powerless God, who becomes dependent on us. But it is precisely in this powerlessness that God's power reveals itself. This is not the power that controls, dictates, and commands. It is the power that heals, reconciles, and unites. It is the power of the Spirit. When Jesus appeared people wanted to be close to him and touch him because "power came out of him" (Luke 6:19).
It is this power of the divine Spirit that Jesus wants to give us. The Spirit indeed empowers us and allows us to be healing presences. When we are filled with that Spirit, we cannot be other than healers.

- Henri Nouwen

Jesus' Compassion

Jesus is called Emmanuel which means "God-with-us" (see Matthew 1: 22-23). The great paradox of Jesus' life is that he, whose words and actions are in no way influenced by human blame or praise but are completely dependent on God's will, is more "with" us than any other human being.
Jesus' compassion, his deep feeling-with us, is possible because his life is guided not by human respect but only by the love of his heavenly Father. Indeed, Jesus is free to love us because he is not dependent on our love.

- Henri Nouwen

Wonder

When the wonder has gone out of a man he is dead. When all comes to all, the most precious element in life is wonder. Love is a great emotion and power is power. But both love and power are based on wonder. Plant consciousness, all are related by one permanent element, which we may call the religious element in all life, even in a flea: the sense of wonder. That is our sixth sense. And it is the natural religious sense.

- D. H. Lawrence

God's Powerlessness

Jesus is God-with-us, Emmanuel. The great mystery of God becoming human is God's desire to be loved by us. By becoming a vulnerable child, completely dependent on human care, God wants to take away all distance between the human and the divine.
Who can be afraid of a little child that needs to be fed, to be cared for, to be taught, to be guided? We usually talk about God as the all-powerful, almighty God on whom we depend completely. But God wanted to become the all-powerless, all-vulnerable God who completely depends on us. How can we be afraid of a God who wants to be "God-with-us" and needs us to become "Us-with-God"?

by Henri Nouwen

God's Embodied Love

The Magi come asking, "Where is the One born to be the Saviour?" (AP). People all around us are asking that question. Day in and day out, whether they or we realize it, people express in countless ways the yearning to know and be known by God. We have the privilege of helping them to come to know that God is real, that evil will not have the last word, that even a world where innocents are killed can be transformed if we will allow ourselves to be transformed.
The wonder of God's coming is this: God doesn't want to be our business partner, to relate to us as a favoured relative, to live near us or even with us. God wants to live in us and through us. As Matthew 5:14 tells us, we are the light of the world. We are meant to be God's embodied love. When we obey the claims of Christ, we are God's continuing incarnation. Embracing one person at a time, we help those we meet to believe that they matter and that they are embraced by God.

- Mary Lou Redding in "WHILE WE WAIT: Living the Questions of Advent" (Nashville, Tenn.: Upper Room Books, 2002)

Trusting Him

So here we are again, a few billion miles farther along our mysterious path among the immensities. What a comfort it is to know the Man in charge of it all. Without Him, it would be easy to think that the whole of time and space, and life itself, are without reason, purpose, or meaning - as H. G. Wells said, that it is "a bad joke beyond our understanding, a flare of vulgarity, an empty laugh braying across the mysteries." With Jesus forever between God and us, we can understand a few things, and trust Him for the rest. After all, He is one of us: a baby once, as we all were...

- Robert MacColl Adams

The Angel's Message

"Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong..." (1 Corinthians 1:26-27 NRSV)
It is not coincidental that the angels' announcement of Jesus' birth - "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" - was made first to shepherds. For people with money, education, and culture, Christ's message often seems too opposed to human wisdom to accept. (In fact, it flies in the face of everything the world teaches about power and glory, about 'making it,' about wealth and success and prestige.) Nor was it by chance that Jesus chose simple fishermen and not scribes to accompany Him as He traveled and taught in Judea

- Johann Christoph Arnold

Christ Sets Us Free!

I read an unusual Christmas sermon about a group who tied the baby Jesus into a manger. The Christmas pageant was being presented in a public area. They would set the stage, go to change into their costumes; then discovered someone had taken the baby doll from the manger before the pageant began. Their solution was to strap the baby doll into the manger. The preacher reflected on how throughout Jesus' life people had attempted to tie or strap Jesus down.
People tried to tie Jesus down by demanding He ignore pain and suffering until after the Sabbath. They tried to tie Jesus down by demanding He follow Jewish practices. They tried to tie Jesus down when He reached across racial and gender lines to bring hope and healing. They tried to tie Jesus to a cross when He refused to do things their way. However, all of their efforts were futile. Jesus couldn't be tied down, not even by death.
The good news of Christmas is that Jesus not only refused to be tied down; He also frees us from the things that tie us down. Depression, failure, divorce, addiction, and bankruptcy cannot tie us down. Hatred, jealousy, poverty, wealth, education, and illness lose their power over us. Jesus Christ sets us free. That Baby -- born in a stable -- is God with us. Jesus breaks the forces that place us in bondage and condemn us to death.
No wonder the angels were singing! The shepherds felt compelled to go and see for themselves. They could not remain on the hillside keeping watch over their flocks. The whole order of the universe was changed that evening. The world could never be the same again. God became a human being, and we were set free.
- U. M. Bishop D. Max Whitfield

Beauty of Unity

The late columnist Mike Royko writes about a conversation he had with Slats Grobnik, a man who sold Christmas trees. Slats remembered one couple on the hunt for a Christmas tree. The guy was skinny with a big Adam's apple and small chin, and she was kind of pretty. But both wore clothes from the bottom of the bin of the Salvation Army store.
After finding only trees that were too expensive, they found a Scotch pine that was okay on one side, but pretty bare on the other. Then they picked up another tree that was not much better—full on one side, scraggly on the other. She whispered something, and he asked if $3 would be okay. Slats figured both trees would not be sold, so he agreed.
A few days later Slats was walking down the street and saw a beautiful tree in the couple's apartment. It was thick and well rounded. He knocked on their door and they told him how they worked the two trees close together where the branches were thin. Then they tied the trunks together. The branches overlapped and formed a tree so thick you couldn't see the wire. Slats described it as "a tiny forest of its own."
"So that's the secret," Slats asserts. "You take two trees that aren't perfect, that have flaws, that might even be homely, that maybe nobody else would want. If you put them together just right, you can come up with something really beautiful."

Mike Royko, One More Time (University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 85-87

The Most Precious Insights

You yourself are the child you must learn to know, rear, and above all enlighten. To demand that others should provide you with textbook answers is like asking a strange woman to give birth to your baby. There are insights that can be born only of your own pain, and they are the most precious. Seek in your child the undiscovered part of yourself.

- Janusz Korczak

Genuine Forgiveness

Instead of genuine forgiveness, our generation has been taught the vague notion of "tolerance." This is, at best, a low-grade parody of forgiveness. At worst, it's a way of sweeping the real issues in human life under the carpet.... Jesus' message [of forgiveness of sins] offers the genuine article and insists that we should accept no man-made substitutes.

- N. T. Wright in "The Lord and His Prayer"

Joint Heirs with Christ

We continue to put ourselves down as less than Christ. Thus, we avoid the full honour as well as the full pain of the Christian life. But the Spirit that guided Jesus guides us. Paul says: "The Spirit himself joins with our spirit to bear witness that we are children of God. And if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:16-17).
When we start living according to this truth, our lives will be radically transformed. We will not only come to know the full freedom of the children of God but also the full rejection of the world. It is understandable that we hesitate to claim the honor so as to avoid the pain. But, provided we are willing to share in Christ's suffering, we also will share in his glory (see Romans 8:17).

- Henri Nouwen

Against Hesitating

Thanks to your "success," you now have something to lose. Because of this - as if suddenly aware of the risks - you ask whether you, or anyone, can "succeed." If you go on in this way, thoughtlessly mirroring yourself in an obituary, you will soon be writing your epitaph - in two senses.
Do what you can - and the task will rest lightly in your hand, so lightly that you will be able to look forward to the more difficult tests, which may be awaiting you.
When the morning's freshness has been replaced by the weariness of midday, when the leg muscles quiver under the strain, the climb seems endless, and, suddenly, nothing will go quite as you wish - it is then that you must not hesitate.

- Dag Hammarskjöld

God's Breath Given to Us

Being the living Christ today means being filled with the same Spirit that filled Jesus. Jesus and his Father are breathing the same breath, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the intimate communion that makes Jesus and his Father one. Jesus says: "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (John 14:10) and "The Father and I are one" (John 10:30). It is this unity that Jesus wants to give us. That is the gift of his Holy Spirit.
Living a spiritual life, therefore, means living in the same communion with the Father as Jesus did, and thus making God present in the world.

- Henri Nouwen

Being Clothed in Christ

Being a believer means being clothed in Christ. Paul says: "Every one of you that has been baptised has been clothed in Christ" (Galatians 3:26) and "Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 13:14). This being "clothed in Christ" is much more than wearing a cloak that covers our misery. It refers to a total transformation that allows us to say with Paul: "I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me" (Galatians 2:20).
Thus, we are the living Christ in the world. Jesus, who is God-made-flesh, continues to reveal himself in our own flesh. Indeed, true salvation is becoming Christ.

- Henri Nouwen

Claiming the Identity of Jesus

When we think about Jesus as that exceptional, unusual person who lived long ago and whose life and words continue to inspire us, we might avoid the realisation that Jesus wants us to be like him. Jesus himself keeps saying in many ways that he, the Beloved Child of God, came to reveal to us that we too are God's beloved children, loved with the same unconditional divine love.
John writes to his people: "You must see what great love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God's children - which is what we are." (1 John 3:1). This is the great challenge of the spiritual life: to claim the identity of Jesus for ourselves and to say: "We are the living Christ today!"

- Henri Nouwen

Why The Church Exists

In God's benevolent economy, the church... provides a place of solace, a hotbed of godly values, a stage for spirited worship, an organism of relationships, and all the bountiful benefits Christians enjoy. But the church isn't the church so that we Christians can experience those perks. The church is the church so that other people can meet Jesus Christ and be captured by the Spirit and be incorporated into the Kingdom for eternity. A church exists, like Jesus, "to seek out and to save the lost." The church is not in the business of coddling the cozy but rather of finding the fallen, and will inconvenience itself in order to reach out. The church exists to do what Jesus valued - and did, Himself.

- James D. Berkley, First Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Washington

Dealing With The Tough Times

I needed the strength of a relationship with Christ, the strength it gives to deal with all the things that are important in life. Things that are overpowering, with the disappointments. Having that relationship has made it a lot more manageable - the tough times, the hard times, the times you don't understand, and the times when you don't know what to do.

- Mark Martin, NASCAR driver, in Sports Spectrum

Only Connect

It is not physical solitude that actually separates one from others; not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation. It is not the desert island nor the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love. It is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger. When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. How often in a large city, shaking hands with my friends, I have felt the wilderness stretching between us. Both of us were wandering in arid wastes, having lost the springs that nourished us - or having found them dry. Only when one is connected to one's own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Transformation, Not Just Information

Having our small group members become 'students of the Bible' is a noble goal, however we can focus so much on Bible knowledge that our small group becomes scholastic and academic rather than life changing. We become transmitters of information rather than helping transform lives. Knowledge is important, but knowledge without obedience does not deepen our relationship with Christ.

- Dan Lentz

Slow Miracles

We take for granted the slow miracle whereby water in the irrigation of a vineyard becomes wine. It is only when Christ turns water into wine, in a quick motion, as it were, that we stand amazed.

- Saint Augustine

Out of the Pit

The greatest task of our time is to help our fellow human beings out of the pit. God will return to us when we are willing to let Him in—into our banks and factories, into our Congress and clubs, into our homes and theaters. For God is everywhere or nowhere, the father of all people or of none, concerned about everything or nothing. Only in His presence shall we learn that the glory of humankind is not in its will to power but in its power of compassion. We will reflect either the image of God's presence or that of a beast. There can be no neutrality.

- Abraham Joshua Heschel

On The Journey Towards Intimacy

We are created in the image of Trinitarian personalness and oneness, which spawns an insatiable capacity for intimacy deep within our being. Jesus' desire for intimacy is revealed in His incarnation, and His request of the Father at the end of his ministry to be one with those who believe (John 17). Intimacy is sacred!
However, our technologically saturated, accomplishment-oriented society is robbing us of the intimacy we naturally long for. Computers, answering machines, the Internet, virtual reality, created to enhance productivity and profits, have actually depersonalized and isolated. Rather than experiencing personal encounters, we find ourselves staring at mechanised screens and fingering keyboards. Intimacy is stolen.
The journey toward intimacy, a complex mix of longing and resistance, asks a great deal of us. Intimacy asks us to be vulnerable. We resist openness and honesty with each other out of fear. We are afraid of being rejected by others and of finding nothing when we look within ourselves to discover our authentic personalness. Instead of living out of our created uniqueness, we hide behind masks which create the false impression that we have it all together. Intimacy is blocked.
Intimacy also asks that we value others in their uniqueness rather than stand in judgement. Fully accepting others without asking them to change invites us to the deepest expression of love.
Jesus' desire for intimacy is realized in the presence of lived personalness, vulnerability and acceptance.

by Stephen Imbach

Being Like Jesus

Very often we distance ourselves from Jesus. We say, "What Jesus knew we cannot know, and what Jesus did we cannot do." But Jesus never puts any distance between himself and us. He says: "I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father" (John 15:15) and "In all truth I tell you, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, and will perform even greater works" (John 14:12).
Indeed, we are called to know what Jesus knew and do what Jesus did. Do we really want that, or do we prefer to keep Jesus at arms' length?

- Henri Nouwen

Jesus Is in the World Not of It

The Beatitudes offer us a self-portrait of Jesus. At first it might seem to be a most unappealing portrait - who wants to be poor, mourning and persecuted? Who can be truly gentle, merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker, and always concerned about justice? Where is the realism here? Don't we have to survive in this world and use the ways of the world to do so?
Jesus shows us the way to be in the world without being of it. When we model our lives on his, a new world will open up for us. The Kingdom of Heaven will be ours, and the earth will be our inheritance. We will be comforted and have our fill; mercy will be shown to us. Yes, we will be recognised as God's children and truly see God, not just in an afterlife, but here and now (see Matthew 5:3-10). That is the reward of modelling our lives on the life of Jesus!

- Henri Nouwen

Interruption Or Appointment?

Jesus wants us to see that the neighbour next door or the people sitting next to us on a plane or in a classroom are not interruptions to our schedule. They are there by divine appointment. Jesus wants us to see their needs, their loneliness, their longings, and He wants to give us the courage to reach out to them.

- Rebecca Manley Pippert

Jesus Is Persecuted

Jesus, the favorite Child of God, is persecuted. He who is poor, gentle, mourning; he who hungers and thirsts for uprightness; is merciful, pure of heart and a peacemaker is not welcome in this world. The Blessed One of God is a threat to the established order and a source of constant irritation to those who consider themselves the rulers of this world. Without his accusing anyone he is considered an accuser, without his condemning anyone he makes people feel guilty and ashamed, without his judging anyone those who see him feel judged. In their eyes, he cannot be tolerated and needs to be destroyed, because letting him be seems like a confession of guilt.
When we want to become like Jesus, we cannot expect always to be liked and admired. We have to be prepared to be rejected.

- Henri Nouwen