Tag Archives: Henri Nouwen

Prodigal Son – A Henri Nouwen Meditation

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Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen Master, would introduce his meditations with simple phrases or Gathas to set the tone for what could follow. One such gatha goes like this:

“I have arrived, I am home in the here, in the now. I am solid. I am free. In the ultimate, I dwell.”

Below is a meditation verse from Henri Nouwen, a Dutch-born Catholic priest and American psychology professor. He uses the returning home reference from The Prodigal Son parable.

May we “return home” many times each day.

You Are Home

September 14, 2024

I have been meditating on the story of the prodigal son. It is a story about returning. I realize the importance of returning over and over again. My life drifts away from God. I have to return. My heart moves away from my first love. I have to return. My mind wanders to strange images. I have to return.

Returning is a lifelong struggle. . . . I am moved by the fact that the father didn’t require any higher motivation. His love was so total and unconditional that he simply welcomed his son home.

For more information about Henri Nouwen see:

henrinouwen.org/about

It’s All How You Look at It

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Converting “wounds into a call for deeper understanding” is another way of reframing our lives, finding a cloud’s silver lining or a pony in the horseshit, and learning from our suffering how to love anew.

Below are excerpts from today’s meditation from Henri Nouwen. May we all find comfort and wisdom today.

It’s All How You Look at It

Our great temptations are boredom and bitterness.

we are tempted to give in to a paralyzing boredom or to strike back in destructive bitterness.

turning wounds into a call for deeper understanding, and sadness into a birthplace of joy.

Then Job replied to the Lord, “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely, I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.’ “

JOB 42:1-3 (NIV)

Nouwen/Reeves Mash Up

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We are a composite of all the influences we accept. Through nature and nurture, we look at life through the filters we’ve inherited and acquired.

The work of two artists converges into a message and an earworm guiding me this morning.

The first is today’s meditation from Henri Nouwen on seeing truth, love and beauty in our everyday lives. The second is a Del Reeves song reminding us to appreciate what we have because we will lose it if we don’t take care of it. Together they remind me how fortunate I am.

Here’s hoping one or both offer something to you.

henrinouwen.org/meditation/

What We’re Looking for is Already Here

We discover that cleaning and cooking, writing letters and doing professional work, visiting people and caring for others, are not a series of random events that prevent us from realizing our deepest self. It is the right time, the real moment, the chance of our lives.

genius.com/Del-reeves-be-glad-lyrics

Be glad you’ve got what you’ve got when you’ve got it
Or you’re gonna find out what you’ve got is gone

Take care what you do when you do if you do it
If you don’t you won’t have your baby long

Everybody envies you, you lucky so and so
You should thank your lucky stars above

You’d better treat her better you’d better start right now
She deserves the best that you can do
She does everything for you the best that she knows how
That’s the least she can expect from you

Henri Nouwen Meditation

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“What keeps us from opening to the reality of the world? Could it be that we cannot accept our powerlessness and are only willing to see those wounds that we can heal?

Could it be that we do not want to give up our illusion that we are masters over our world and, therefore, create our own Disneyland where we can make ourselves believe that all events of life are safely under control?

Could it be that our blindness and deafness are signs of our own resistance to acknowledging that we are not the Lord of the Universe?

It is hard to allow these questions to go beyond the level of rhetoric and to really sense in our innermost self how much we resent our powerlessness . . . .

The astonishing thing is that the battle for survival has become so “normal” that few people really believe that it can be different . . . .

Oh, how important is discipline, community, prayer, silence, caring presence, simple listening, adoration, and deep, lasting faithful friendship. We all want it so much, and still the powers suggesting that all of that is fantasy are enormous.

But we have to replace the battle for power with the battle to create space for the spirit.“

For more see henrinouwen.org/meditation/

Repost of today’s Nouwen Meditation: Patience

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Patience

March 11, 2023

The mother of expectation is patience. The French author Simone Weil writes in her notebooks: “Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” Without patience our expectation degenerates into wishful thinking. Patience comes from the word patior, which means “to suffer.” The first thing that Jesus promises is suffering: “I tell you . . . you will be weeping and wailing . . . and you will be sorrowful.” But he calls these birth pains. And so, what seems a hindrance becomes a way; what seems an obstacle becomes a door; what seems a misfit becomes a cornerstone. Jesus changes our history from a random series of sad incidents and accidents into a constant opportunity for a change of heart. To wait patiently, therefore, means to allow our weeping and wailing to become the purifying preparation by which we are made ready to receive the joy that is promised to us.

Meditation Landing
https://henrinouwen.org/meditation/

Jan 1, 2023 – Happy New Year

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Every new year, new day, new breath is a new beginning. May we enjoy the present moment more often this year.

Below is a repost of today’s daily meditation from the Henri Nouwen Society. https://henrinouwen.org/meditation/

May we be inspired and re-energized for the moments to come.

“What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.” Henri Nouwen (https://henrinouwen.org/)

A New Beginning!

We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises.

Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to the voice saying to us: “I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it!” Imagine. Is it possible that our imagination can lead us to the truth of our lives? Yes, it can!

The problem is that we allow our past, which becomes longer and longer each year, to say to us: “You know it all; you have seen it all, be realistic; the future will just be a repeat of the past. Try to survive it as best you can.”

There are many cunning foxes jumping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears the great lie: “There is nothing new under the sun… don’t let yourself be fooled.” When we listen to these foxes, they eventually prove themselves right: our new year, our new day, our new hour become flat, boring, dull, and without anything new.So what are we to do?

First, we must send the foxes back to where they belong: in their foxholes. And then we must open our minds and our hearts to the voice that resounds through the valleys and hills of our life saying: “Let me show you where I live among my people. My name is ‘God-with-you.’ I will wipe all the tears from your eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness. The world of the past has gone” (Revelation 21:2–5).
Let us go forth boldly with awe and wonder