Thoughts on burnout

 

Burnout

Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: “May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fulfill my deepest desire”? But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burnout. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on fasting

 

‘Is This Not the Fast I Wish?’

An early follower of Francis was not able to sustain the extreme fasting that Francis himself practiced. Rather than shaming the man, Francis broke his own fast so that his hungry brother could eat. Religious practices can never become more important than the end to which they lead: love of God and love of neighbor. Jesus makes this point again and again in the Gospels. It’s a good lesson at the beginning of Lent. What we do for Lent is far less important than why we do it. The time-honored traditions of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are less to benefit us than to draw us closer to God and improve the lives of those around us. 

—from the book Lent with St. Francis: Daily Reflections by Diane M. Houdek

Thoughts on birthdays

 

Birthdays

Birthdays need to be celebrated. I think it is more important to celebrate a birthday than a successful exam, a promotion, or a victory. Because to celebrate a birthday means to say to someone: “Thank you for being you.” Celebrating a birthday is exalting life and being glad for it. On a birthday we do not say: “Thanks for what you did, or said, or accomplished.” No, we say: “Thank you for being born and being among us.” On birthdays we celebrate the present. We do not complain about what happened or speculate about what will happen, but we lift someone up and let everyone say: “We love you.” Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on Lent

 A Lenten Prayer

The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.

I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.

Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me. Amen.

Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on success

 

Jesus Never Promised Success

At no point in the Gospel does Jesus tell us that if we follow him our lives will be filled with success or that people will like us for it. Quite the contrary, actually! We follow a man who came to share the love of God with the world through healing and forgiveness, but was rejected by the religious elite, betrayed by his closest friends, and murdered as a common criminal. This is not simply Jesus’s fate many years ago, but ours today. “Take up your crosses daily,” he tells us. While there is nothing wrong with hoping for success in our lives, our faith is destined for problems if it becomes an expectation we cannot live without. The road of discipleship is filled with failure; if we demand that our lives be successful, we won’t make it very far.

—from the book Let Go: Seven Stumbling Blocks to Christian Discipleship
by Casey Cole, OFM, page 28

Thoughts on hospitality

 

Hospitality

Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. . . . The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adore the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on your worth

 

Claim Your Truth

It seems crucial that you realize deeply that your worth and value does not depend on anyone else. You have to claim your own inner truth. You are a person worth being loved and called to give love, not because anyone says so . . . but because you are created out of love and live in the embrace of a God who didn’t hesitate to send his only son to die for us. . . . Your being good and worthy of love does not depend on any human being. You have to keep saying to yourself: “I am being loved by an unconditional, unlimited love and that love allows me to be a free person, center of my own actions and decisions.” The more you can come to realize this, the more you will be able to forgive those who have hurt you and love them in their brokenness. Without a deep feeling of self-respect, you cannot forgive and will always feel anger, resentment, and revenge. The greatest human act is forgiveness: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us.” Forgiveness stands in the center of God’s love for us and also in the center of our love for each other. Loving one another means forgiving one another over and over again. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on mistakes

 

God Is Not Afraid of Mistakes

God is not afraid of mistakes, it seems. God knows that God can turn everything around—into good. There are no dead ends in the economy of grace.

• When have you made mistakes? How has God turned those events around, and brought good out of them? What did you learn, and how did you grow, through that process?

• How would you describe “the economy of grace” to someone unfamiliar with Christianity?

—from the book Things Hidden Companion Guide by Richard Rohr (page 24)

Thoughts on the Bible

 

Read the Bible with New Eyes

This marvelous anthology of books and letters called the Bible is all for the sake of astonishment. It’s for divine transformation (theosis), not intellectual or “small-self” coziness…. The biblical revelation invites us into a genuinely new experience. Wonderfully enough, human consciousness in the twenty-first century is, more than ever, ready for such an experience—and also very much in need of it! The trouble is that we have made the Bible into a bunch of ideas—about which we can be right or wrong—rather than an invitation to a new set of eyes. (pp. 1–2)

• When has the Bible led you “into a genuinely new experience”? Describe as much of that experience as you can recall, then sit for a few moments in silence to see what else arises of that memory. What does it have to say to you today?

• When have you witnessed the Bible being reduced to “intellectual or ‘small-self’ coziness”? Were you aware of it at the time, or only in retrospect? In what ways can you be careful to avoid such reduction in your own faith journey?

—from the book Things Hidden Companion Guide by Richard Rohr (page 9)

Thoughts on healing

 

We All Need Healing

Rather than face what we fear, accepting that we need help, we deny our need for help, even to ourselves. At some point, we become so afraid of our wounds, so afraid of admitting we have a problem, that we hide our problems even from ourselves, engaging in mental gymnastics and reshaping the world so we can fit in as we are. We tell others we’re fine, and we begin to believe it ourselves. We remain the walking wounded, trapped by sin and pain, yet ignorant of our situation. This is a huge stumbling block on our spiritual journeys as disciples. We cannot call ourselves disciples, those who follow after Jesus and call him master, if we refuse to let him transform every part of us. None of us is perfect. All of us carry wounds. If we want to be his disciples, we must let go of our pride and fear, our willful ignorance and low expectations, and be vulnerable enough to let Jesus heal us.

—from the book Let Go: Seven Stumbling Blocks to Christian Discipleship
by Casey Cole, OFM, page 81

Thoughts on prayer

 Coming to our Senses in Prayer

St. Ignatius invites us to new ways of praying, one of which involves what he calls "the application of the (5) senses" (feeling, seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling) in "considering" topics in the 4 weeks of the Spiritual Exercises. 

Perhaps February will cooperate in being an appropriate "season" for our growing in these types of prayer, using some familiar poems and songs as starting points for praying with our 5 bodily senses, complementing our more abstract intellectual approaches to prayer. Or, you may prefer to apply these 5 senses to the bible readings assigned to each Sunday in February. 

Most of us probably start off each day with a jolt of java. American poet E.E. Cummings (1894-1962) invites us to broaden our morning's awakening with the sights, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells of nature:

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday ;this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings :and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any—lifted from the no

of all nothing—human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

-Fr. Ted Arroyo, SJ

 

This poem has also been set to music, available on YouTube if you'd like.