It is to this silence [contemplative prayer] that we all are called.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of silence and contemplation in connecting with the spiritual or deeper aspects of life.
Henri Nouwen highlights the significance of silence and contemplative prayer as essential practices that everyone is called to experience. In a world filled with noise and distraction, this call invites individuals to seek moments of stillness, allowing for deeper introspection and a stronger connection to their spiritual selves.
In practice
In a meditation workshop, the facilitator quoted Nouwen to emphasize the importance of quiet reflection.
The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. God loves us, not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love.
The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides in the immense sorrow that has gone before....our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering β for us. And calling us to share in Godβs suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
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, welcome, to accept.
Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. (Finding My Way Home)
Becoming the beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour.
The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass available.
Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless, but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye.
Seek always to do some good, somewhere... Even if it's a little thing, so something for those that need help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.
Way back in the 1970s, I was eating a steak, and I looked down, and for the first time it suddenly looked like flesh to me - like a dead creature. In a flash, I realized that every time I ate any kind of meat, something had been killed for me, and I stopped eating all animals, not just cows and pigs but chickens and fish.
Simplicity is not a goal, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of oneself, as one approaches the real meaning of things.
"Why are breakfast food breakfast foods?" I asked them. "Like, why don't we have curry for breakfast?" "Hazel, eat." "But why?" I asked. "I mean seriously: How did scrambled eggs get stuck with breakfast exclusivity? You can put bacon on a sandwich without anyone freaking out. But the moment your sandwich has an egg, boom, it's a breakfast sandwich."
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