Week Two: Part One: Leaving & Returning Home – Chapters 2 & 3
Chapter 2: “The Younger Son”
1. Can you recall a time in your life when you wanted to “cut loose or do something other than what was considered to be decent or appropriate”? (p. 21) Did this desire lead you to a “leaving home experience? (Note: “leaving home” does not have to be a literal leaving.) Have you attempted any returns?
2. Try the “listening” exercise. When you approached the parable or the painting from the perspective of posture, what new insights did you receive?
Chapter 3: “From L’Arche to a Second Loneliness”
1. In talking about a second loneliness, Henri Nouwen shares the following, “The more I find intimacy with the Creator of my life, the more loneliness I experience.” Does this insight make sense to you? Why or why not?
2. What are the “heart cries” that you hear from the people in the parable when you become conscious of their loneliness? Can you share something of how their heart cry resonates with you? Within which circle (from the ones that we drew) do you find yourself as you complete “Listening” or “Communing”? ( pages 48-49)
As Rose observed, this book invites people to go quite deep and each chapter can take some time to navigate through as well as ‘bring it home’ to our own experience. We will stay with the schedule posted, however please work through the chapters at the pace that best suits you! I can see from our online community that we are really working through the chapters together in a great way and for that reason I would prefer that we as a community set the pace!
Sincerely,
Kim
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May 12th, 2009 @ 11:53 pm
Chapter 2:
1. For me, life seems to be a series of leavings from and returns to a figurative home. That home has ranged from the actual physical home of my parents, to the home of relationships with others, and ultimately to my spiritual home with God. As I grow older, each subsequent departure has been a little less far away. Perhaps I am learning from my wanderings.
2. The prodigal son in the painting is returning from a very difficult journey of discovery. Whereas youthful bravado and pride had led him away from his home, his experiences have made him appreciate his father’s love and brought him home to seek forgiveness. Upon his return, the prodigal son is greeted with the father’s unconditional love which completely overwhelms the son. This is shown in how the son is on his knees in front of the father, with eyes closed and head buried in his father’s chest. A total lack of self awareness in front everyone and a sincere act of humility. If only I could approach others whom I have wronged with this much humility. If only I could approach God in this way.
Chapter 3:
1. I am not certain that I have fully experienced“second loneliness”in my relationship with God. Perhaps my relationship with God has not developed to that stage. Though what I do feel at times is fear from the realization that in my humanness, I can’t really know God. How can I love God or fully feel God’s love when I don’t know and understand my Creator? Maybe this fear is my form of loneliness.
2. The heart cry I hear from the prodigal son is of someone who has suddenly come to the realization that they have greatly wronged someone and are willing to do anything to make amends. From the elder son I hear the cry of one who doesn’t truly understand his father’s love and because of this doesn’t feel loved. The elder son feels that he has earned his father’s love, but fails to comprehend that this love can’t be earned, it just is. As a result, all that the elder son feels is injustice. The heart cry I hear from the father is both sadness and joy. Joy that the younger son has come to know the father’s love, but sadness too that the elder son hasn’t.
At times I feel the heart cries of both the sons. In my circle with God, I am willing to do anything to become closer. However, in the circle of relationships with my spouse, family and friends, all too often I am the elder son feeling slighted when the love I have “earned” through my actions and good deeds isn’t returned.
May 12th, 2009 @ 12:47 pm
Hi all!
], and then one discovers who she is and where she belongs–that is she does come home. Then again, maybe one discovers that she really has sparrow wings and needs to return home, remaining a sparrow. My point: we leave home for both healthy and unhealthy reasons, and it’s not easy to judge the reasons for the choices others make or even our own choices at times. Henri’s affirmation of the Father’s love for the son even as the son leaves is vital, I believe, for understanding the parable. The son was always loved and always belonged even when trying out his wings.
Chapter 2
I wondered as I pondered the questions if we put too negative a spin on “leaving home.” Sometimes home can be a stifling,tight space that doesn’t allow us to move and grow. When we leave such a place, others may see us as behaving in ways they consider to be not “decent or appropriate.” I’m not talking about outright wrong living here, but a need to have some space in one’s life so that wings can be spread and some risks taken to truly become oneself. And yes, maybe as those wings are spread, there are some falls. But maybe after a few tumbles, one is soaring with eagles rather than chatting with sparrows [nothing personal against sparrows–I have plenty at my bird feeder
I find it intriguing that the son, while kneeling, is still upright and the Father, while standing, is bent over. Together they form a circle, a unity based on giving and receiving love.
Chapter 3
I am going through something like Henri’s second loneliness in my life right now. On the one hand, I feel that my life vocation is becoming more clear. On the other hand, the means to make this vocation a reality have become more vague. This clarity and vagueness is mirrored in my heart right now in my relationship with God. I feel both so close to God, and yet so detached.
Peace and joy to you all,
Deborah
May 12th, 2009 @ 9:32 am
I feel gratitude to be in this circle of readers! The sharing here really makes the book take on a new beauty.
Just a quick note to let you all know that I’ll be reading your notes but not able to reply regularly this week. I am preparing and performing in L’Arche Daybreak’s 40th anniversary Gala that takes place Tuesday night in Richmond Hill. I’ll be acting as a poet with a dear friend, Janet Monroe.
Peace,
Kim
May 11th, 2009 @ 1:03 pm
It has been so enlightening to read all the entries. I am fascinated that a whole group of viewers of Rembrandt’s painting can see such a deep reality which stems from the reading of the parable. Seems like Rembrandt, through the invitation of Nouwen and also the Nouwen Society has become a current participant–and here he was from a whole different era. The reason I like my head lower than the Father’s is that it is true more and more in my life that I have been learning more and more to trust His guidance. I used to just chaffe against authority and structures of authority but authority truly stemming from God is more and more becoming for me a way of life. From time-to-time I continue to put up my defenses against the direction He is leading me to go in, but more and more I seem to be going where the Wind Blows and enough positive experiences are piling up so that my prayer life and ability to just follow are getting more confident and I might say more joyful. After a lot of thinking and rethinking, even my own human father and human mother have become more acceptable authorities for me–I’ve been able to appreciate their choices more, especially those having to do with their faith. Some things they did actually freed me up, much as the Father did for the prodigal son letting him go.
May 11th, 2009 @ 8:02 am
1. We are asked whether greater intimacy with our Creator gives us a greater sense of loneliness. I find that the more I trust God as Source of Unconditional Love, the more I can see that the love of human beings is of a different order, cnnot be trusted as can God’s Love. Experience shows me that it is a mistake to expect from a human being what only God can give, and if I do expect this, I will be disappointed.
2. As I become aware of the inadequacies and limits of all humans, there arises a sense of compassion. Each is sending forth a “heart cry” of frustration and sorrow because of wanting from other humans what we are not able to provide. We seek and yearn to be loved as only God can and does love us. Until and unless we realize that it is God whose Heart speaks to our heart, we will suffer. Only when we know our Creator as Guide and Guard can we be at peace.
May 11th, 2009 @ 7:59 am
1. I was tempted to leave “home” literally, and did so in my early 20’s. I was finding intolerable the lack of rapport with family members and criticism of my behavior and beliefs. Negative atmosphere, very destructive. However, my first leaving to be “on my own” proved to be a mistake/premature, and I returned reluctantly and only briefly. Again I ventured forth and was able with help of a therapist to develop a sense of autonomy and to build a network of friends beyond “home” and thus to sustain what began as a sense of independence with growing realization of interdependence. With the Grace of God and God’s Mercy I was enabled to live according to the ideals which had been planted in me in baptism and to build upon the gifts of the Spirit. I had felt the need to remove myself from the home environment in order to become the person God intended me to be. I came to feel compassion for the adults who comprised my family for their limited and limiting attitudes, and to forgive them for cruelty toward me in my growing years. I believe they knew no other way, and I took to heart the words of Jesus from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” In that awareness, I was “at home.” A strength fo me was the stained glass window of “Rock of Ages,” which met a need for security and stability — much as the Prodigal Son image for Henri. . . a visual help to keep me centered and at peace. It signified what is enduring and everlasting and the Power of God.
2. I see in the Rembrandt painting my coming to the compassion of the father with my parents, though neither showed the contrition of the younger brother in his posture. Yet, if my parents had been able to feel contrition, I believe my own life would have been far different. Instead I see my parents and my mother’s aunt and mother (my grand aunt and maternal grandmother) standing outside the inner circle in an attitude of self-righteousness as they criticized my father (and me) who did not leave voluntarily, but who was driven away and not permitted to see me from age 6. When he came to the house to see me the blinds were drawn, and I was ordered not to answer the door.
I see need for forgiveness, though it was not sought. There was apparently no realization of need for it, a “not knowing.” I ask God to have mercy on these “inner circle” people in my life. And I remember that I am not their judge. As I recall these experiences, I am grateful and surprised that I no longer feel bitterness, only regret and compassion. This deepening of insight I attribute to the mentoring of Henri through the gift of his reflections. I am “at home” in my heart as “heart speaks to heart.”
May 10th, 2009 @ 10:40 pm
Hi Ed and Sharon, thanks for your reflections. I too hope that we will have a discussion about the ’second lonliness’ and it looks like your thoughts Ed on the inner ‘gap’ might be a good spring board…does it create a longing for God or for ’something other’ in your life? Some theologians call that the apophatic way of knowing God, that is, through becoming aware of this second lonliness or ‘hole’ as you say…(Have you heard of the book ‘There is a God: There is no God’ by Kirvan?)
I was also interested in you observation Sharon about the position of the son’s head being lower than the Fathers. Why do you feel that it should be so?
At first it was hard for me to enter the parable from the perspective of posture (even though I’m a dancer!). When I went back and read the parable (from posture perspective) I noticed the words (NRSV Bible) “But when he came to himself he said ‘How many of my Father’s hired hands have bread enough….etc”.
He came to himself…is what captured my attention. It’s a movement of return before the actual physical return began. I can only guess what the son’s position might have been when he ‘came to himself’ (Head bent, body bowed, the stress of hunger bringing him to his knees) What was most clear to me was his interior gaze, like he was looking at himself in a mirror and discovering a stark reality about his life.
Interestingly, as I read on, I noticed that the movement shifted from the son’s initiative (to return) to the Father’s initiation of welcoming him home. Once again, the son responds by dropping to his knees (bent posture) only this time it is different because his Father also bends over to meet him and be with him. What was Jesus conveying to his listeners? I think he was saying to them that ‘this is what my Father will do for me…’ and ‘through my life and passion, this is what the Father is going to do for you for all eternity’.
Kim
May 10th, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
Re: Sharon ->>
I am way behind on my reading folks because I keep going over and analyzing and pop on here to get other opinions and hopefully I will finish this book before the year is out …… I was thinking Sharon as I read the above that I need humility even more than I imagined or else just possibly, I am on the right road and feel like I am sitting at a fork in the road because I’ve been getting just the opposite message in my heart. {Maybe I just got the key - Jesus is speaking to us where we are at and what we as individuals need..) Actually, I’ve been thinking while reading that I have to accept that I am a LOVED child of God and there is absolutely nothing that I have ever done or could ever do that would separate me from that unconditional love. In my opinion, I am thinking that I should at all times, as soon as I realize a transgression and am sorry for it (if still angry for example I could know I was wrong but not yet be sorry), but once I realize that I didn’t behave like a beLOVED child of the Father, I should be able to hold my head up high so that I can look Him straight into the eyes when we are in each other’s loving embrace. As someone said, this is more like a retreat. It is and actually more time consuming than I ever bargained for but truly worth it. I really do need this on line community and a good thing there isn’t a book report due, because I would be in big trouble! God Bless you all! - Rose
May 9th, 2009 @ 11:53 am
Even from a very young age, I had always just wanted to be a good person, a morally upright person. I was raised in a Protestant church and, for some reason, it didn’t feel like my upbringing had really enabled me to be the good person I wanted to be. So I “left home” in search of reason and wisdom–read the humanist philosophers and the writings of people who celebrated human reason and solving all the world’s problems with human reason. Actually that was a dead-end for my own reasoning abilities because I literally had a break in the functioning of my brain. But God was evidently working through this brain He had given me because eventually I or was it He in me made my way back to the Church I belong to and now I am fully able to testify that the foolishness of God is stronger than the wisdom of myself or any other human being. Regarding posture, it is important that the head of the prodigal son my own head be a lot lower than the Father’s head. No way there could be an upright posture for the prodigal son, in my opinion.
May 8th, 2009 @ 6:26 am
I was really looking forward to a discussion about this second loneliness. It resonates with me. I feel it in my life; I have felt it as my kids grew up and my career moved along nicely. The loneliness comes from something missing. What i’ve learned from Henri and Sue Mosteller is that an internal hole is created as we move through life, and the hole is reserved for God. So for for me, loneliness isn’t related to more intimacy with God. Loneliness is just there; it is natural; and intimacy with God is comforting.