The growing realization of one’s sins and weaknesses must open the contemplative to a growing awareness of God’s love and care.
— Henri Nouwen // The Genesee Diary
I am becoming more and more aware that solitude indeed makes you more sensitive to the good in people and even enables you to bring it to the foreground.
— Henri Nouwen in The Genesee Diary
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Reading Henri Nouwen’s The Genesee Diary on the back porch hammock. This is the Good Life :)
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Started reading The Genesee Diary by Henri Nouwen this afternoon whilst on a hike. The sunshine was nourishing and life was teeming all about me. Challenged at my lack of ability to truly cultivate solitude and inner watchfulness. Encouraged to carve more time for this practice and to grow in the inner peace of Christ. Wishing Merritt was along for the hike, but looking forward to our upcoming adventures :)
Posted April 7, 2012 at 10:15pm in woods adventure watchfulness solitude Henri Nouwen spiritual discipline
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At Big Dog enjoying a latte and Henri Nouwen. Experiencing the boundlessness of God’s compassionate love as I read the words of the Father, “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.”
Solitude
“Solitude is not a private therapeutic place. Rather, it is the place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born…
“In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me – naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken – nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long, hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive – or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation. Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory…
“The wisdom of the desert is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unconditionally to the Lord Jesus Christ” (The Way of the Heart, p. 27-28).
“…love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking”
~Henri Nouwen
I love Nouwen. I think I’ll re-read In The Name of Jesus today. Thanks Katie :)
