A gentle touch of the Spirit’s kindness – Henri Nouwen and I

Photo by Jasper van der Meij on Unsplash

From the Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 – 1996) quotes I gathered below; some comfortably safe maxims with which to reflect on. Of course, his many books take us deeper into the vestiges of his immense pastoral wisdom, but partake of now, as time allows:

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Care is profoundly simple. It involves putting off ourselves and putting on another person; as if we wear this other person in our presence; we try them on as if they were a garment; not actually, but metaphorically. Our desire is to step inside their experience. When we can be all about them, they have a living advocate not unlike the Advocate. In this, we must be all virtue. For me, that is care.

“Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

We are poor in comparison to the Spirit of Christ, which we may ask to come and fill us. The more He fills us, the poorer we realise we actually are, and this is a vitalising truth to let inhabit us. As much as we can be poor of spirit, He can be a rich source of wisdom we draw upon in order to become humbler, and hence more capable of forgiveness. As we are weak in ourselves, we are strong in God. The less we are, the more He is. The less we grapple, the more freedom comes. The great work of love, then, is to be capably vulnerable, and weak beyond fear.

“A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.”
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

The very manifestation of contentment and faith; certainly a contented faith that covets nothing except God’s Presence in the lived-out moment. Patience must be the exhibition of peace. It is the way out of anxiety and into the fuller bloom of the gorgeousness of the moment. When we accept that the moment is what it is, the moment begins to feel at peace to us, for us, within us.

“We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.”
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

The fuller experience of life is the gift given of our boldness to live it well into riskiness. That is, to live life to the full emotionally, mentally, spiritually, socially, without constraints on our time or limits on our willingness to let go. As much as we wish to live into the reality of life, God will open up to us. The more we want and are willing to enter into, the more He will give us. Life is about holiness within social discovery.