Paul Long's Ramblings

One of my favourite authors is the late Henri Nouwen. Every time I read something from him, he almost always makes me pause to reflect and pray.  How relevant and timely is this excerpt from his book "You are the beloved". More and more I read and hear about the increase in people struggling with mental health related challenges.  One of the most common is the feeling of loneliness, even among Christians, which Henri Nouwen (below) rightly describes can lead to depression if not dealt with properly. I can certainly identify with this first hand.  Read what he says and I hope it helps as he gives advice that he himself followed in his life.  The highlighted in bold part is my doing.  Whenever you feel lonely, you must try to find the source of this feeling. You are inclined either to run away from your loneliness or to dwell in it. When you run away from it, your loneliness does not really diminish; you simply force it out of your mind temporarily. When you start...

Another insightful quote by Henri Nouwen ... We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval. God loves us without conditions but does not approve of every human behavior. God doesn't approve of betrayal, violence, hatred, suspicion, and all other expressions of evil, because they all contradict the love God wants to instill in the human heart. Evil is the absence of God's love. Evil does not belong to God. God's unconditional love means that God continues to love us even when we say or think evil things. God continues to wait for us as a loving parent waits for the return of a lost child. It is important for us to hold on to the truth that God never gives up loving us even when God is saddened by what we do. That truth will help us to return to God's ever-present love. - Henri Nouwen

Another helpful reminder from Henri Nouwen. Ramblings below after his thoughts ... :-) Question from Above What are spiritual questions?  They are questions from above.  Most questions people ask of Jesus are questions from below, such as the question about which of  a woman's seven husbands she will be married to in the resurrection.   Jesus does not answer this question because it comes from a legalistic mind-set.  It is a question from below. Often Jesus  responds by changing this question.  In the case of the woman with seven husbands he says, "At the resurrection men and women do not marry - have you never read what God himself said to you:  'I am God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?'  He is God not of the dead but of the living" (Matthew 22:23-30). We have to keep looking for the spiritual question if we want spiritual answers.    It has been a good couple of days of leave. Had fu...

Listening as Spiritual Hospitality   To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations.  True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known.   They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept. Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond.  Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings.  The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves.  Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.

Creating Space for God   Discipline is the other side of discipleship. Discipleship without discipline is like waiting to run in the marathon without ever practicing. Discipline without discipleship is like always practicing for the marathon but never participating. It is important, however, to realize that discipline in the spiritual life is not the same as discipline in sports. Discipline in sports is the concentrated effort to master the body so that it can obey the mind better. Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create the space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God's guidance. Thus, discipline is the creation of boundaries that keep time and space open for God. Solitude requires discipline, worship requires discipline, caring for others requires discipline. They all ask us to set apart a time and a place where God's gracious presence can be acknowledged and responded to.

What Is Most Personal Is Most Universal We like to make a distinction between our private and public lives and say, "Whatever I do in my private life is nobody else's business." But anyone trying to live a spiritual life will soon discover that the most personal is the most universal, the most hidden is the most public, and the most solitary is the most communal. What we live in the most intimate places of our beings is not just for us but for all people. That is why our inner lives are lives for others. That is why our solitude is a gift to our community, and that is why our most secret thoughts affect our common life. Jesus says, "No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house" (Matthew 5:14-15). The most inner light is a light for the world. Let's not have "double lives"; let us allow what we live in private to be known in public.

I like this very much .... Dying Well We will all die one day. That is one of the few things we can be sure of. But will we die well? That is less certain. Dying well means dying for others, making our lives fruitful for those we leave behind. The big question, therefore, is not "What can I still do in the years I have left to live?" but "How can I prepare myself for my death so that my life can continue to bear fruit in the generations that will follow me?" Jesus died well because through dying he sent his Spirit of Love to his friends, who with that Holy Spirit could live better lives. Can we also send the Spirit of Love to our friends when we leave them? Or are we too worried about what we can still  do ? Dying can become our greatest gift if we prepare ourselves to die well.

Forgiveness, the Cement of Community Life Community is not possible without the willingness to forgive one another "seventy-seven times" (see Matthew 18:22). Forgiveness is the cement of community life. Forgiveness holds us together through good and bad times, and it allows us to grow in mutual love. But what is there to forgive or to ask forgiveness for? As people who have hearts that long for perfect love, we have to forgive one another for not being able to give or receive that perfect love in our everyday lives. Our many needs constantly interfere with our desire to be there for the other unconditionally. Our love is always limited by spoken or unspoken conditions. What needs to be forgiven? We need to forgive one another for not being God! Community, a Quality of the Heart The word  community  has many connotations, some positive, some negative. Community can make us think of a safe togetherness, shared meals, common goals, and joyful celebrations. It also can ca...

A wonderful way to view "patience"! Living the Moment to the Fullest Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.

How true ...millions upon millions of people are still fighting and carrying on hate that began hundreds of years ago ...Christ can break the cycle Letting Go of Old Hurts One of the hardest things in life is to let go of old hurts.  We often say, or at least think:  "What you did to me and my family, my ancestors, or my friends I cannot forget or forgive. ... One day you will have to pay for it."  Sometimes our memories are decades, even centuries, old and keep asking for revenge. Holding people's faults against them often creates an impenetrable wall.  But listen to Paul:  "For anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation:  the old order is gone and a new being is there to see.  It is all God's work" (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).  Indeed, we cannot let go of old hurts, but God can.  Paul says:  "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone's fault against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19).  It is God's work,...

So true .... The Freedom to Refuse Love  (Henri Nouwen) Often hell is portrayed as a place of punishment and heaven as a place of reward.  But this concept easily leads us to think about God as either a policeman, who tries to catch us when we make a mistake and send us to prison when our mistakes become too big, or a Santa Claus, who counts up all our good deeds and puts a reward in our stocking at the end of the year. God, however, is neither a policeman nor a Santa Claus.  God does not send us to heaven or hell depending on how often we obey or disobey.  God is love and only love.  In God there is no hatred, desire for revenge, or pleasure in seeing us punished.  God wants to forgive, heal, restore, show us endless mercy, and see us come home.  But just as the father of the prodigal son let his son make his own decision God gives us the freedom to move away from God's love even at the risk of destroying ourselves.   Hell is not God's cho...

Active Waiting Waiting is essential to the spiritual life.  But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting.  It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for.  We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus.  We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory.  We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God's footsteps. Waiting for God is an active, alert - yes, joyful - waiting.  As we wait we remember him for whom we are waiting, and as we remember him we create a community ready to welcome him when he comes.

Thanks brother Nouwen ... for writing and saying things that leaders find it hard to say but which needs to be said :-) The Poverty of Our Leaders   There is a tendency to think about poverty, suffering, and pain as realities that happen primarily or even exclusively at the bottom of our Church.  We seldom think of our leaders as poor.  Still, there is great poverty, deep loneliness, painful isolation, real depression, and much emotional suffering at the top of our Church. We need the courage to acknowledge the suffering of the leaders of our Church - its ministers, priests, bishops, and popes - and include them in this fellowship of the weak.  When we are not distracted by the power, wealth, and success of those who offer leadership, we will soon discover their powerlessness, poverty, and failures and feel free to reach out to them with the same compassion we want to give to those at the bottom.  In God's eyes there is no distance between bottom and top....

On Monday, my wife and I attended the funeral service of our good neighbour who passed away from cancer. First time attending a non religious based funeral in NZ conducted by a "funeral celebrant"  Don;t want to blog too much on it except to say that the focus was a "remembrance of her life". And of course as it is usually the case at funerals, it made me reflect again on the subject of "life and death". So it was timely to get this my email from my Henri Nouwen email list (dated Tuesday) The Quality of Life   It is very hard to accept an early death.  When friends die who are seventy, eighty, or ninety years old, we may be in deep grief and miss them very much, but we are grateful that they had long lives.  But when a teenager, a young adult, or a person at the height of his or her career dies, we feel a protest rising from our hearts:  "Why?  Why so soon?  Why so young?  It is unfair." But far more important than our quantity of ye...

Digging Into Our Spiritual Resources When someone hurts us, offends us, ignores us, or rejects us, a deep inner protest emerges.  It can be rage or depression, desire to take revenge or an impulse to harm ourselves.  We can feel a deep urge to wound those who have wounded us or to withdraw in a suicidal mood of self-rejection.  Although these extreme reactions might seem exceptional, they are never far away from our hearts.  During the long nights we often find ourselves brooding about words and actions we might have used in response to what others have said or done to us. It is precisely here that we have to dig deep into our spiritual resources and find the center within us, the center that lies beyond our need to hurt others or ourselves, where we are free to forgive and love.

Another gem from Nouwen How Time Heals "Time heals," people often say.  This is not true when it means that we will eventually forget the wounds inflicted on us and be able to live on as if nothing happened.  That is not really healing;  it is simply ignoring reality.  But when the expression "time heals" means that faithfulness in a difficult relationship can lead us to a deeper understanding of the ways we have hurt each other, then there is much truth in it.  "Time heals" implies not passively waiting but actively working with our pain and trusting in the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Another excellent reminder from Henri Nouwen 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.

So much is happening and in some aspects I feel really helpless ... so it is a timely reminder for me this morning that I am on the right track and should not "feel guilty" (yet again!) because by praying I am doing the right and necessary practical thing.  Wednesday June 15, 2011    When you pray, go to your private room and, when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6)   Prayer is in many ways the criterion of Christian life. Prayer requires that we stand in God's presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing. 

Fourth Week of Lent - April 6, 2011 "Jesus said...'My father goes on working, and so do I'." (John 5) The relationship between Jesus and the Father is so intimate it is like breathing. God offers this same intimacy to you and me, breathing love into us, and with this breath inspiring us to breathe love into others.  'It is good for you that I'm going, Jesus said, 'because if I go, I can send you my Spirit, my breath. - Henri Nouwen

Second Week of Lent - March 24, 2011 "There was a rich man who used to dress in purple and fine linen and feast magnificently every day. And at his gate there lay a poor man called Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to fill himself with the scraps that fell from the rich man's table." (Luke 16) The elder (the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal) is not free in his relationship with the father because he is bound by resentment. Resentment is probably one of the most pervasive evils of our time. It is something that is very real, very pernicious and very, very destructive. ... each of us might examine how our lives and relationships are wounded because of unresolved resentments buried in hour hearts. - Henri Nouwen