The radical mystic

"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?