Thoughts on joy

 

Joy Is a Gift from God

Joy is a gift from God, one of God’s surprises that comes to us when we are expecting something else. And yet we can also say that joy is won. It is won by those with heart enough to surrender to God. God gives the power to surrender, but we alone can choose to use that power. So in that sense we win our joy in God. And “win” is a good word here, for the surrender is never made without a struggle; and in this case by losing the struggle against God and surrendering to God, we win! Another paradox, another reality that only the Spirit of God can explain. Only in the power of God’s spirit is our defeat our victory, and our surrender our real possession.

— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

Thoughts on spirituality

 

We Are a People of Hope

The state of the world suggests to me the urgent need for a spirituality that takes the end things very seriously, not a spirituality of withdrawal, nor of blindness to the powers of the world, but a spirituality that allows us to live in this world without belonging to it, a spirituality that allows us to take the joy and peace of the divine life even when we are surrounded by the powers and principalities of evil, death, and destruction. I wonder if a spirituality of liberation does not need to be deepened by a spirituality of exile or captivity. I wonder if a spirituality that focuses on the alleviation of poverty should not be deepened by a spirituality that allows people to continue their lives when their poverty only increases. I wonder if a spirituality that encourages peacemaking should not be deepened by a spirituality that allows us to remain faithful when the only things we see are dying children, burning houses, and the total destruction of our civilization. May God prevent any of these horrors from taking place, may we do all that is possible to prevent them, but may we never lose our faith when “great misery [descends] on the land and wrath on this people . . . [when there are] signs in the sun and moon and stars . . . [when] nations [are] in agony, bewildered by the clamor of the ocean and its waves” (Luke 21:24–26). I pray that we will not be swept away by our own curiosity, sensationalism, and panic, but remain attentive to him who comes and will say: “Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34–35). Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on burnout

 

God Doesn’t Get Burned Out

Exhaustion, burnout, and depression are not signs that you are doing God’s will. God is gentle and loving. God desires to give you a deep sense of safety in God’s love. Once you have allowed yourself to experience that love fully, you will be better able to discern who you are being sent to in God’s name. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on sleep

 

When We Can't Sleep

Sometimes I cannot sleep at night because God is stirring my soul. I have no direct experience of God, but my restlessness and tossing makes me rise and take pen in hand to record my own weakness and God’s great love and kindness. Praise God who acts in our lives when we think it is only our nerves or our inability to unwind and let nature take its course. When we rise and do God’s will, we sleep well the remainder of that time we call the night.

— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

Thoughts on prayer

 

Pray Like No One Is Watching

One secret of a life of prayer is that we must learn to pray without a sideward glance to see if anyone is watching. We must, as Jesus counsels, go into our room, close the door, and pray to our Father in secret. This entering into our room and closing the door is something we must do even when we are praying in public, even when we are praying with others, and maybe especially then. Otherwise, like King Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we cry out, “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below, / Words without thoughts never to Heaven go.” If our words are calculated to please others or to impress them, or if we use our prayer to bolster our own egos before others, then our thoughts remain below. Our concentration must be on God, who lifts us up and out of ourselves. If our thoughts during prayer are truly on God, then we will be accepted and admired by others. For then, and only then, will we be independent enough of our fellow human beings and dependent enough on God to be truly ourselves. And when we are truly ourselves, we are loveable enough to be loved.

—from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM

Thoughts on nature

 

Nature is a Gift

In recent decades we have become particularly aware of the crucial importance of our relationship with nature. As long as we relate to the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the fields, and the oceans as properties to be manipulated by us according to our real or fabricated needs, nature remains opaque and does not reveal to us its true being. When we relate to a tree as nothing more than a potential chair, it cannot speak much to us about growth. When a river is only a dumping place for our industrial wastes, it no longer informs us about movement. And when we relate to a flower as nothing more than a model for a plastic decoration, the flower loses its power to reveal to us the simple beauty of life. When we relate to nature primarily as property to be used, it becomes opaque, and this opaqueness is manifested in our society as pollution. The dirty rivers, the smog-filled skies, the strip-mined hills, and the ravaged woods are sad signs of our false relationship with nature. Our difficult and very urgent task is to accept the truth that nature is not primarily a property to be possessed, but a gift to be received with admiration and gratitude. Only when we make a deep bow to the rivers, oceans, hills, and mountains that offer us a home, only then can they become transparent and reveal to us their real meaning. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on forgiveness

 

Forgive and Begin to Live

Until we learn to forgive deeply and sincerely, we remain only on the threshold of real union with God, we remain essentially imprisoned and unfree. In the course of a lifetime, we gradually accumulate countless little resentments which, if allowed to grow, become big hates and seemingly insoluble differences. If, however, we do not allow these jealousies and hatreds to grow, but instead try always to purify our hearts, we enter into the mystery of love, the mystery of God. We have so much to forgive: life, maybe, certainly those who have hurt us and even ourselves (perhaps most of all, ourselves). Often we are hardest on ourselves and need to forgive ourselves for failing, for being less perfect than we would like to be. God forgives us much more readily than we forgive ourselves, and this inability to forgive ourselves is the cause of much of our pain and inability to grow. Forgive, then, and we will begin to live. 

— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM