October 22 - From relevance to prayer - challenge
This week’s question is “what from this chapter spoke most directly to you and why?”
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October 30th, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
Carole, Hi
The reason, I’m sure you’ve been wondering why, I was inquiring about your residence is that a lady that I met a few years ago from Virginia might be you, but I was wrong, and found out this morning that she has Crohn’s disease not CFS. With respect to you and her, I wanted to make sure about what she has before I could say why I was asking. There are a lot of I’s in this paragraph…hate to use the letter I!
How is everybody doing and how’s your weather?
Shalom to you!
October 29th, 2007 @ 10:23 am
Hello all,
I thought perhaps you all might be interested in knowing that at the website, www.spiritualityandpractice.com an e-course on Henri Nouwen is being offered starting Nov 1st. I took one of their courses and found it very worthwhile, and if I had the $19.95 I would certainly be taking it.
Carole
October 29th, 2007 @ 10:19 am
Hi Phillip,
I live in Vermont, in the hills beside the Green Mountain National Forest…I so enjoyed what you said about the desireability of hiddenness, and have often thought that this is one of the gifts of the illness that keeps me isolated from others, when I consciously choose that isolation and see it as a gift and an opportunity to be open to God’s grace miracles occur….
Carole
October 28th, 2007 @ 8:04 pm
Hi, Kay!
If anyone is hesitant to share what you’re reading, hearing, or feeling, “Don’t be Afraid,” it helps us to listen, because as Henri says, “God speaks to God,” and we need to keep listening to the “Voice,” again and again.” pg. 45
Amen Jan, I’m with you about being glad that God isn’t like us. And Judith, I like what you said about accepting it “With faith.” Our only example is Jesus!
Wanting something in return has always been my way of receiving love, an incurable habit, until I accepted Jesus into my heart.
Wanting to be relevant makes these questions hard when I look at the second loves in my life.
In a book I’m reading, “ My Life with the Saints,” by James Martin, he writes about the simple and hidden life that Jesus reminds us off in Matthew by saying, “When you give alms, don’t let the left hand know what the right hand is doing, so your alms may be done in secret; your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
The burning desire for fame is a manifestation of pride, a pride that seeks not the hiddenness of the desert or the humility of an unseen act, but the adulation of others.” He goes on to say, this is ultimately a self-destructive mind-set, since one can never receive enough acclaim to satisfy the craving for attention or fame or notoriety. Inexorably, it leads to despair, so it must be resisted. James even quotes Henri in that one strives to seek the freedom to be “hidden from the world, but visible to God.” This helps me realize that I can only truly love unconditionally by learning to fully receive the first love, that of God through the resurrecting love of Christ. Peace!
Carole, do you live in Virginia?
October 28th, 2007 @ 9:44 am
It is comforting…”…with a knowledge of Jesus’ heart, we bring healing, reconciliation, new life and hope wherever we go…” I immediately think of one particular pastor who exemplified this but I also think of my Nana. Without a formal tie to any one particular religious denomination, she always exemplified unconditional, unlimited love to each and everyone. She truly walked the talk. The idea of FIRST LOVE is almost beyond my comprehension but I do accept it with Faith.
Judith
October 27th, 2007 @ 9:28 am
Hi all,
Yes, the brokenness of the second love is painful to reflect on for me as I feel again some those the very painful hurts. However, I know and agree with Henri that my second love, just like the second love of anyone else, is only a broken reflection of the awesome unbroken love of God. God’s love has no shadows because it is full of light and in the light. It is totally unconditional and thus is always there. If it were not for this awesome love holding me up and reminding me that Jesus is with me, I would be falling apart right about now.
October 25th, 2007 @ 8:44 am
Hello, I think I posted this in the wrong place, so I’m reposting here…sorry….Carole
Thank you Phillip, your comments brought tears to my eyes. I just realized once again, yesterday, that the place of darkness in our lives, the biggest, darkest, most painful place is just a tiny, pinhead of a place away from that warm dark secure place that is the center of God, perhaps it is the entryway.
Re the question for this week,what spoke most directly to me…….if we act out of the need to be relevant rather than our love of God we have not offered to others the love of God, but simply our own need. What then, have we accomplished? Have we shared the Good News? (the love of God?) The only way then, to be relevant, is to love God. And the results from that, then, will be known only to God, perhaps to ourselves (as we experience loving, but maybe not, if our pain is great) and perhaps the others who have received the love of God (if they recognize it, also, whether or not we know or see that they have received it). It All boils down then to our relationship with God - nothing else is of great consequence. I am comforted by my own thoughts!
October 24th, 2007 @ 10:19 pm
In some ways reading this chapter was painful. It is very comforting to know that God loves me “without any conditions or limits.” But it is uncomforting to recognize that that the second loves are “limited, broken and very fragile.” (pg. 40) When I feel the two thoughts, I realize how difficult it will be to be a disciple of Jesus as described in John 13:34-35.
October 24th, 2007 @ 8:49 pm
What spoke most directly to me? After discussing the 1st and 2nd kinds of love, Nouwen states that knowing the heart of Jesus and loving Him are the same thing. To me, this is a re-affirmation of something that Nouwen has helped me to see – the difference between a head knowledge and heart knowledge. “When we live with that knowledge we cannot do other than bring healing, reconciliation, hope and new life wherever we go. The desire to be relevant and successful will disappear…”
October 24th, 2007 @ 6:42 pm
The thing that spoke to me most was “The radical good news is that the second love is only a broken reflection of the first love and that the first love is offered to us by a God in whom there are no shadows.”
I believe we often base our view of God on this ’second love’ - parents, partners, etc. We see God as being like us. Thank God for His NOT being like us! There are no shadows, no darkness - nothing but pure light to fill our souls with unconditional love.
Now, if I can just get that from my head to my heart …