"You will find him in your own town, in your own family, and even in the strivings of your own heart, because he is in every man who draws his strength from the vision that dawns on the skyline of his life and leads him to a new world.
It is this new world that fills our dreams, guides our actions and makes us go on, at great risk, with the increasing conviction that one day man will finally be free - free to love!"
- from The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen
This is the passage at the end of a chapter which is about the condition of our world and our (as a human race) ways of processing and interacting.
Am I am mystic? am I a revolutionary? do I lose sight of God's work in my life when I allow myself to be pigeon-holed into one of these grandiose labels?
On one side I find my introspective nature that would quietly sit for hours and analyze and process the realities of my life, and never really engage. It is this part of me that consistantly will wonder, "have I found what is really important in this life and the next...and am I living in it?" It is this side of me that believes if I could just sit at home all day and read and pray and ponder the greatness of God, I would find true life.
Then there is the other side, which Nouwen calls the revolutionary. It is the lifestyle that says, "change the world or die trying." It is this part of me that believes I will find my purpose...my identity, in what I do and what I give my life to. This is the side of me that would say "forsake the few, for the sake of the many"...a great business model...but not the ideal for my pursuit of God.
So what exactly should it look like for me to exist as both? How do I live as a radical mystic who moves boldly forward to change the world...while asking God what are the small simple things for me to do...to honor You today?
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Lost and Elizabethtown
The older I get, certain things in life become clearer than ever before. I am not talking about life purpose or anything like that. The clarity I am speaking of has to do with...well...the rules of the road...the unavoidable laws of life. Some of them are obvious to us, and I have been reminded of just a few in recent days:
-Every month and year seems to pass by faster than the year before.
-Every young adult longs for the freedom of their own place to live...until they have it...and then they long for mom's cooking and laundry services.
-Following your dreams costs you much
-If you do not grow through the pain of your past, you will never be able to get past...the past.
The "rule" that has be ready to write at this moment is hard to articulate, so I will just put it this way: "certain things are better left unsaid." (Is it ironic that it is hard to articulate that?) Perhaps I am the only one that notices this, which is fine, but I am finding all of these moments lately where I engage with friends or peers and there is something there...something between us. Good or bad, it is there. Now I have become a person who is quick to call those things out, it is becoming natural to me. However, I am beginning to wonder if in some situations, things are better left unsaid. An odd tension among co-workers that has no obvious resolution...a noticeable attraction between two friends...a parting of ways...sometimes the things that we feel are the most important to say are the things we are better off not saying.
When i think of this, I think of Lost and Elizabethtown. Lost is currently my favorite TV show and Elizabethtown is one of my favorite movies of all time (if not my #1 favorite). I find myself talking to people about these pieces of entertainment...and if feels useless. I can tell you dynamics of why I think Lost is such a well written show, and I can talk about the originality found in Elizabethtown...but in the end...I can not communicate why these shows touch me like they do.
We (as a human race) are all in search of deep connections. Some of our deepest desires, and deepest hurts and pains are built around this need to be connected to others. I am noticing of late that there is nothing I can do to communicate why Lost and Elizabethtown speak to my soul so much, why I feel like the watching of these things is like the read of a book entitled "all about Cory." All I know is that these things are close to me, because they have touched my soul in a way that few things have, they have brought tangible, visual pictures to the "hard to communicate" places of my heart.
I can't tell you exactly why I like these shows so much, all I know is that when you watch them and connect, you engage in an unspoken dialog with me...over things I have yet to figure out how to articulate.
-Every month and year seems to pass by faster than the year before.
-Every young adult longs for the freedom of their own place to live...until they have it...and then they long for mom's cooking and laundry services.
-Following your dreams costs you much
-If you do not grow through the pain of your past, you will never be able to get past...the past.
The "rule" that has be ready to write at this moment is hard to articulate, so I will just put it this way: "certain things are better left unsaid." (Is it ironic that it is hard to articulate that?) Perhaps I am the only one that notices this, which is fine, but I am finding all of these moments lately where I engage with friends or peers and there is something there...something between us. Good or bad, it is there. Now I have become a person who is quick to call those things out, it is becoming natural to me. However, I am beginning to wonder if in some situations, things are better left unsaid. An odd tension among co-workers that has no obvious resolution...a noticeable attraction between two friends...a parting of ways...sometimes the things that we feel are the most important to say are the things we are better off not saying.
When i think of this, I think of Lost and Elizabethtown. Lost is currently my favorite TV show and Elizabethtown is one of my favorite movies of all time (if not my #1 favorite). I find myself talking to people about these pieces of entertainment...and if feels useless. I can tell you dynamics of why I think Lost is such a well written show, and I can talk about the originality found in Elizabethtown...but in the end...I can not communicate why these shows touch me like they do.
We (as a human race) are all in search of deep connections. Some of our deepest desires, and deepest hurts and pains are built around this need to be connected to others. I am noticing of late that there is nothing I can do to communicate why Lost and Elizabethtown speak to my soul so much, why I feel like the watching of these things is like the read of a book entitled "all about Cory." All I know is that these things are close to me, because they have touched my soul in a way that few things have, they have brought tangible, visual pictures to the "hard to communicate" places of my heart.
I can't tell you exactly why I like these shows so much, all I know is that when you watch them and connect, you engage in an unspoken dialog with me...over things I have yet to figure out how to articulate.
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