Kuasa Kata: Menyapa

Saya pada awalnya mendesain blog ini sebagai gudang penyimpanan tulisan. Saya kemudian mengalihkan fungsinya sebagai ruang kemanusiaan. Layaknya seorang photografer, saya membingkai berbagai kehidupan manusia dalam beragam frame. Blog ini menawarkan senyuman, tetapi sekaligus air mata kehidupan.
Semoga setiap nama dan peristiwa dalam blog ini menyapa hidup pembaca. Kata yang baik memiliki kuasa untuk menyapa.

Mutiara Andalas, S.J.


Showing posts with label Henry J. Nouwen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry J. Nouwen. Show all posts

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Ultah Persekutuan Doa KKI Sacramento

Para sahabat,

Selamat ulang tahun PD Kharismatik ke -6. Saat mendapat tawaran sebagai pembawa firman, saya awalnya mengajukan keberatan. Saya ingin hadir dalam perayaan istimewa ini sebagai pendengar firman. Saya ingin mendengarkan refleksi 6 tahun komunitas kharismatik. Bukankah keindahan kehidupan terletak setengahnya dalam refleksinya? Saya akhirnya luluh dengan permintaan kepada panitia untuk memberikan usulan tema.
“Perbedaan: Kerendahan Hati & Kesombongan;
Kehendak Tuhan & Kehendak
Hati Sendiri;
dan Pelayanan untuk Tuhan & Pelayanan Ambisi Pribadi.
Perkenankan saya membahas tema ini berdasarkan pengalaman pribadi sebagai pelayan, gagasan kitab suci mengenai pelayanan, dan inspirasi Henry J.M. Nouwen. Kita biasanya bicara dengan urutan arti pelayanan, kriteria pelayan, dan buah pelayanan. Pada malam ini saya ingin mengubah urutannya menjadi buah pelayanan, arti pelayanan, dan kriteria pelayan.


Buah Pelayanan
“Orang yang baik mengeluarkan barang yang baik dari perbendaharaan hatinya yang
baik” (Lukas 6, 45).
Suatu malam beberapa teman mengajak saya jajan nasi goreng lesehan di Malioboro. Begitu kami duduk, peminta-minta dan pengamen jalanan langsung mengerubungi kami. Seorang sahabat pada awalnya mengeluarkan beberapa recehan. Jumlah yang diberikannya semakin sedikit dan ia akhirnya menolakkan tangannya.
“Nggak ada recehan lagi.”
Sahabat lain juga mengeluarkan recehan, bahkan jumlahnya bertambah untuk merek a meminta belakangan.
“Mengapa kamu murah hati sekali kepada mereka?”
Ia sekedar mengangkat bahunya karena sulit menerangkannya.
Penjual nasi goreng mendekati tikar kami dan menyuguhkan sepiring nasi goreng yang menggunung tingginya.
“Kami pesan paket nasi goreng porsi biasa, bukan porsi mahasiswa.”
“Saya mengubahnya jadi porsi jumbo karena kalian bermurah hati pada pengemis dan pengamen jalanan.”
“Ibu nggak rugi?”
“Pemberian kepada orang lain jangan pernah membuat kita jatuh miskin setelahnya. Pemberian yang benar justru memperkaya kita setelahnya.”
“Dengan prinsip ini, warung lesehan bertambah pelanggan setiap hari.”

Perutusan dalam Nama Allah
Henry J.M. Nouwen menulis,“Ministry is service in the name of the Lord.” Bahasa Indonesia mengalami kesulitan untuk menerjemahkan kalimat pendek ini. Nouwen memberi keterangan tambahan dengan kutipan teks kitab suci,

Roh Tuhan ada pada-Ku,
Oleh sebab Ia telah mengurapi Aku,
Untuk
menyampaikan kabar baik kepada orang-orang miskin;
Dan Ia telah mengutus Aku
Untuk memberitakan pembebasan
Kepada orang-orang tawanan,
Dan
penglihatan bagi orang-orang buta,
Untuk membebaskan orang-orang yang
tertindas,
Untuk memberitakan tahun rahmat Tuhan telah datang (Lukas 4, 18 –
19).


Saya kemudian memahami pelayanan sebagai “perutusan dalam nama Tuhan dihadapan komunitas.”
Pelayanan kristiani lebih berkaitan dengan ‘spiritualitas’ daripada dengan ‘teknik’ kepemimpinan. Seseorang dikatakan memiliki spiritualitas jika ia “berdiri dihadapan Allah dengan hati dan budi terbuka.” Keterpautan spiritual dengan Allah akan membuatnya memiliki keterpautan sosial dengan yang dilayaninya.
“Semakin kita akrab dengan Allah, semakin kita dekat pula dengan manusia. Allah bersemayaml dalam kenisah batin kita (inner sanctuary) dan berkemah pula dalam kenisah batin saudara-saudari kita.”
Nouwen berbicara mengenai kemegahan spiritual (spiritual greatness). Pelayan kristiani dapat memiliki kemegahan spiritual tanpa harus menghadirkan pribadi-pribadi lain sebagai pembandingnya.
Saya dapat menilai, “Jenny itu cantik” tanpa harus menambahkan “lebih cantik atau kurang cantik dari perempuan lain.”

Membawa Yang Terpinggir ke Tengah
Apakah ketrampilan kepemimpinan dengan demikian kurang penting?
Orang tua sahabat saya senantiasa mendorong anak-anaknya untuk makan bersama. Karena sibuk dengan pekerjaan rumah lain, ibunya kadang-kadang lupa mengecilkan api kompor. Akibatnya nasinya berkerak. Ia meletakkan kerak untuk menutupi nasi agar tetap hangat.
Hampir semua anaknya menyingkirkan kerak nasi ke samping saat mengambil nasi. Seorang anaknya selalu mengambil kerak nasi ke piringnya.
Suatu malam suami isteri itu bicara mengenai anak yang mengambil kerak nasi.
“Ia akan menjadi pemimpin yang baik di kemudian hari.”
“Mengapa bisa demikian?”
“Ia menyantap kerak nasi yang disingkirkan saudara-saudarinya.”
Bagian tubuh paling istimewa dari gereja bukan kepala yang memimpin atau tangan yang mengontrol, tetapi bagian tubuh yang paling jauh dari kata istimewa. Seorang pemimpin kristiani menempatkan yang mereka yang paling di pinggiran untuk berada di pusat hidup Gereja. St. Paulus menuliskan demikian,
“Dan kepada anggota-anggota tubuh yang menurut pemandangan kita kurang
terhormat, kita berikan penghormatan khusus” (1 Kor 12, 23).

Jebakan dalam Pelayanan
Saya teringat salah satu filosofi Jawa: Becik ketitik, ala ketara. Yang baik akan tersingkap, yang jelek akan terungkap.
Pemimpin kristiani masa depan tidak memberikan kelebihannya, tetapi kerapuhan dirinya (vulnerable self). Kerapuhan diri di dunia kita seringkali harus disembunyikan. Cobalah sekarang berdiri di depan cermin. Seberapa tebal make up pada wajah kita agar menutupi bagian-bagian yang dalam pandangan kita kurang elok?

Kekuasaan menjadi pengganti paling mudah untuk tugas sulit mengasihi. Kita lebih mudah menjadi Allah daripada mengasihi Allah, untuk mengontrol orang lain daripada mengasihi orang lain, untuk mencintai kehidupan sendiri daripada mencintai kehidupan. Kehadirannya tidak “mengancam dan menuntut, tetapi justru mengundang dan membebaskan.”

Saya seringkali mendengar ucapan terhadap sahabat kita yang beberapa waktu tidak aktif dalam komunitas kita, “Tumben kamu datang?” Mengapa kita sulit berkata kepadanya, “Sudah lama kita tak bertemu ya?”
Pemimpin kristiani memiliki kepercayaan akan nilai kehidupan dan mengekspresikan dalam pelayanannya. Ia seperti seorang nelayan yang matanya berkilauan saat menemukan kerang karena memiliki pengharapan untuk menemukan mutiara di balik kerak kerang.

Siapa diantara kandidat presiden AS yang masih bicara dengan nada pengharapan di tengah krisis ekonomi belakangan ini?
Menjadi relevan (‘mengubah batu menjadi roti’), spektakuler (‘jatuhkan dirimu ke bawah’ dan berkuasa (‘memberikan semua kerajaan’) merupakan jebakan-jebakan dalam pelayanan.

Mendaku Panggilan dalam Komunitas
Nouwen mengakui kesulitan untuk membedakan antara yang menjadi panggilan dan yang sekedar menjadi keinginan kita. Rasa tidak aman, keraguan diri, dan kebutuhan untuk diakui orang lain seringkali menjadi membuat kita ragu, bahkan kehilangan kepercayaan pada panggilan Allah. Pelayanan yang tumbuh dari panggilan akan memberikan kedamaian dan suka cita sejati. Aktivitas yang hanya memberi tumpukan kerja, rasa capai, bahkan hilangnya semangat tidak memuliakan Allah.
Allah menghendaki kita untuk hadir dalam komunitas secara unik. Ia mengundang kita untuk mengenali panggilan batin dan kemudian mendakunya.
Perkenankan saya mengakhiri pembicaraan dengan mengutip catatan harian Nouwen mengenai pelayanan.

Hasrat saya semakin bertumbuh untuk berjalan keliling, menyapa pribadi lain,
mengunjungi mereka, bercengkerama di ruang tamu, bermain bola, dan melempar air.
Semoga mereka semakin mengenali saya sebagai saudara mereka. Bukankah perutusan
seorang pelayan pertama-tama dan terutama adalah hadir diantara yang
dilayaninya? Hasrat untuk menjadi relevan, spektakuler, berkuasa sedemikian kuat
menyetir saya sehingga waktu habis untuk pertemuan, konferensi, studi kelompok,
lokakarya, dan rapat kerja. Bukankah hal pertama yang dilakukan pemimpin itu
mengenal anggotanya, makan dan minum bersama mereka, berbagi kisah, berjabat
tangan serta berpelukan kasih?



Berkeley, 11 Oktober 2008
Mutiara Andalas, S.J.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Henry Nouwen on Prayer and Silence


With Open Hands,

by Henri Nouwen

Chapter 1: Prayer & Silence

We know there is some connection between prayer and silence, but if we think about silence in our life it seems that it isn’t always peaceful; silence can also be frightening.

One student who had thought deeply about the silence in his life wrote:

Silence is night
and just as there are nights
with no moon and no stars
when you’re all alone
totally alone
when you’re cursed
when you become a nothing
which no one needs —
so there are silences
which are threatening
because there is nothing except
the silence.
Even if you open your ears
and your eyes
it keeps going on
without hope or relief.
Night with no light, no hope
I am alone
in my guilt
without forgiveness
without love.
Then, desperately, I go looking
for friends
then I walk the streets
a body
a sign
a sound
for nothing.

But the are also nights
with stars
with a full moon
with the light from a house
in the distance
and silences which are peaceful
and reflective
the noise of a sparrow
in a large empty church
when my heart wants to sing out
with joy
when I feel that I’m not alone
when I’m expecting
friends
or remember
a couple of words
from a poem I read lately
when I lose myself in a
Hail Mary
or the somber voice of a psalm
when I am me
and you are you
when we aren’t afraid of
each other
when we leave all talk to
the angel
who brought us the silence
and peace.

Just as there are two nights, there are two silences, one is frightening and the other is peaceful. For many, silence is threatening. They don’t know what to do with it. If they leave the noise of the city behind and come upon a place where no cars are roaring, no ships are tooting, no trains rumbling, where there is no hum of radio or television, where no records or tapes are playing, they feel their entire body gripped by an intense unrest. They feel like a fish which has been set on dry land. They have lost their bearings. There are some students who can’t study without a solid wall of music surrounding them. If they are forced to sit in a room without the constant flow of sound, they grow very nervous.

Thus, for many of us, silence has become a real disturbance. There was a time when silence was normal and a lot of racket disturbed us. But today, noise is the normal fare, and silence, strange as it may seem, has become the real disturbance. It is not hard to understand, therefore, that people who experience silence in this way will have difficulty with prayer.

We have become alienated from silence. If we go to the beach, or on a picnic in the woods, the transistor radio is often our most important companion. Perhaps we should say that we can’t stand the sound of silence.

Silence is full of noise. The wind murmuring, the leaves rustling, the birds flapping their wings, the waves washing ashore. And even if these noises cannot be heard, there is still the breathing of a quiet man, the motion of his hand over his skin, the swallowing of his throat, and the soft patter of footfalls. But we have become deaf to this thundering silence. It seems that it can’t be heard anymore without the help of amplifiers.

If a person is invited to exchange this noise for silence, it is often a frightening proposal. He feels like a child who sees the walls of a house collapse and suddenly finds himself in an open field, or like a woman who is violently stripped of her clothing, or like a bird town away from its nest. His ears begin to ache because the familiar sounds are missing and his body needs that noise as a downy blanket which kept it warm. The man who is thus sent into silence is like the dope addict who must go through the painful withdrawal process.

But still more difficult than getting rid of that surrounding din is the achievement of inner silence, a silence of the heart which goes beyond every man. It seems that a person who is caught up in all that noise has lost touch with his own inner self. The questions which are asked from within go unanswered. The unsure feelings are not cleared up and the tangled desires are not straightened out, the confusing emotions are not understood. All that remains is a chaotic tumble of feelings which have never had a chance to be cured because the man constantly let himself be distracted by a world demanding all his attention.

It is hardly a surprise, therefore, that when all the daily racket is shut off, a new noise turns on, rising out of all those vague feelings which scream for attention. The person who enters a quiet room still doesn’t experience inner silence. When there is no one to talk to, and no one to listen to, an interior discussions starts up which almost seems to get out of hand. The many unsolved problems demand attention, one care forces itself upon the other, one complaint rivals the next, all plead for a hearing. Sometimes a person is left powerless in the face of twisted sentiments which he cannot untangle.

It makes you wonder if the diversion we look for in the many things outside us might not be an attempt to avoid a confrontation with what is inside. "What should I begin when I’m through with all my work?" This question leads many people to flee from themselves and to hold fast to any number of things which make them feel like they’re still busy. It’s as if they were saying: "Where do I turn when I have no more friends to talk with, no music to listen to, no paper to read, and no films to see?" The problem here is not whether a person can live without friends or without feeding his eyes and ears, but that there are many people who can’t stand to be alone, to shut their eyes, to gently push aside all the assorted noises and to sit calmly and quietly.

To be calm and quiet all by yourself is hardly the same as sleeping. In fact, it means being fully awake and following with close attention every move going on inside you. It involves a self-discipline where the urge to get up and go is recognized as a temptation to look elsewhere for what is really close at hand. It is the freedom to stroll in your own yard, to rake up the leaves and clear the paths so you can easily find you way. Perhaps there will be much fear and uncertainty when we first come upon this "unfamiliar terrain," but slowly and surely we begin to see developing an order and a familiarity which summon our longing to stay home.

With this new confidence, we recapture our own life afresh from within. Along with the new knowledge of our "inner space" where feelings of love and hate, tenderness and pain, forgiveness and greed are separated, strengthened or reformed, there emerges the mastery of the gentle hand. This is the hand of the gardener who carefully makes space for a new plant to grow, and who doesn’t pull weeds too rashly, but only uproots those which threaten to choke the young life. Under his gentle regime, a man once again becomes master over his own house. Not only over his day, but over his night as well. Not only when he is awake, but also when he sleeps. For he who has the day, will gain the night as well. Sleep is no longer a strange darkness, but a friendly curtain behind which dreams continue to live and to send out messages which can be gratefully received. The paths of his dreams are as trusty as the paths of his waking hours and there is no longer any need to be afraid.

If we do not shun the silence, all this is possible. But it is not easy. Noise from the outside keeps demanding our attention, and restlessness from within keeps stirring up our anxiety. Many people feel trapped between this temptation and this fear. Since they can’t turn inward, they look for calm in the noises, even when they know they will never find it there.

But whenever you do come upon this silence, it seems as though you have received a gift, one which is "promising" in the true sense of the word. The promise of this silence is that new life can be born. It is this silence which is the silence of peace and prayer, because you are brought back to the other who is leading you. In this silence you lose the feeling of being compulsive and you find yourself a person who can be himself along with other things and other people.

Then you realize that you can do many things, but it isn’t necessary. It is the silence of the "poor in spirit," where you learn to see your life in its proper perspectives. In this silence, the false pretenses fade away and you can see the world again with a certain distance, and in the midst of all your cares, you can pray with the psalmist:

If Yahweh does not build the house,
in vain the masons toil;
if Yahweh does not guard the city,
in vain the sentries watch.
(Psalm 127)

What We Feel Is Not Who We Are

Our emotional lives move up and down constantly. Sometimes we experience great mood: swings from excitement to depression, from joy to sorrow, from inner harmony to inner chaos. A little event, a word from someone, a disappointment in work, many things can trigger such mood swings. Mostly we have little control over these changes. It seems that they happen to us rather than being created by us.

Thus it is important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of God within us. As we feel our emotions shift we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are. We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children.

But God's forgiveness is unconditional; it comes from a heart that does not demand anything for itself, a heart that is completely empty of self-seeking. It is this divine forgiveness that I have to practice in my daily life. It calls me to keep stepping over all my arguments that say forgiveness is unwise, unhealthy, and impractical. It challenges me to step over all my needs for gratitude and compliments. Finally, it demands of me that I step over that wounded part of my heart that feels hurt and wronged and that wants to stay in control and put a few conditions between me and the one whom I am asked to forgive. [Henri Nouwen quoted by Yancey p.82]


.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

You are looking for ways to meet Jesus. You are trying to meet him not only in your mind but also in your body. You seek his affection, and you know that this affection involves his body as well as yours. He became flesh for you so that you could encounter him in the flesh and receive his love in the flesh.

But something remains in you that prevents this meeting.

There is still a lot of shame and guilt stuck away in your body, blocking the presence of Jesus.
You do not fully feel at home in your body; you look down on it as if it were not a good enough, beautiful enough, or pure enough place to meet Jesus.

When you look attentively at your life, you will see how filled it has been with fears, especially fears of people in authority: your parents, your teachers, your bishops. your spiritual guides, even your friends. You never felt equal to them and kept putting yourself down in front of them. For most of your life, you have felt as if you needed their permission to be yourself.

Think about Jesus. He was totally free before the authorities of his time. He told people not to be guided by the behavior of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus carne among us as an equal, a brother. He broke down the pyramidal structures of relationship between God and people as well as those among people and offered a new model: the circle, where God lives in full solidarity with the people and the people with one another.

You will not be able to meet Jesus in your body while your body remains full of doubts and fears.

Jesus carne to free you from these bonds and to create in you a space where you can be with him.
He wants you to live the freedom of the children of God.

Do not despair, thinking that you cannot change yourself after so many years.

Simply enter into the presence of Jesus as you are and ask him to give you a fearless heart where he can be with you.
You cannot make yourself different. Jesus carne to give you a new heart, a new spirit, a new mind, and a new body. Let him transform you by his love and so enable you to receive his affection in your whole being.

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m206/wsfan_2006/sungyuri1.jpg

Jawaban Nouwen terhadap Puisi Malam Itu

Find the Source of Your Loneliness

Whenever you feel lonely, you must try to find the source of this feeling. You are inclined either to run away from your loneliness or to dwell in it. When you run away from it, your loneliness does not really diminish; you simply force it out of your mind temporarily. When you start dwelling in it, your feelings only become stronger, and you slip into depression.

The spiritual task is not to escape your loneliness, not to let yourself drown in it, but to find its source.
This is not so easy to do, but when you can somehow identify the place from which these feelings emerge, they will lose some of their power over you. This identification is not an intellectual task; it is a task of the heart. With your heart you must search for that place without fear.

This is an important search because it leads you to discern something good about yourself.

The pain of your loneliness may be rooted in your deepest vocation. You might find that your loneliness is linked to your call to live completely for God.
Thus your loneliness may be revealed to you as the other side of your unique gift. Once you can experience in your innermost being the truth of this, you may find your loneliness not only tolerable but even fruitful. What seemed primarily painful may then become a feeling that, though painful, opens for you the way to an even deeper knowledge of God's love.

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/358/copyoflove152cm.jpg

Friday, February 1, 2008

Understand the Limitation of Others

Understand the Limitations of Others

by Henry J.M. Nouwen

"You keep listening to those who seem to reject you. But they never speak about you. They speak about their own limitations. They confess their poverty in the face of your needs and desires. They simply ask for your compassion. They do not say that you are bad, ugly, or despicable. They say only that you are asking for something they cannot give and that they need to get some distance from you to survive emotionally. The sadness is that you perceive their necessary withdrawal as a rejection of you instead of as a call to return home and discover there your true belovedness.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Receive All the Love that Comes to You

Receive All the Love That Comes to You

Henry J.M. Nouwen

While you may feel physically and mentally strong, you still experience a forceful undercurrent of anguish. You sleep well, you work well, but there are few waking moments when you do not feel that throbbing pain in your heart that makes everything seem up in the air. You know that you are progressing, but you can't understand why this anguish keeps pervading everything you think, say, or do. There is still a deep, unresolved pain, but you cannot take it away yourself. It exists far deeper than you can reach.

Be patient and trust. You have to move gradually deeper into your heart. There is a place far down that is like a turbulent river, and that place frightens you. But do not fear. One day it will be quiet and peaceful.

You have to keep moving, as you are doing. Live a faithful, disciplined life, a life that gives you a sense of inner strength, a life in which you can receive more and more of the love that comes to you.

Wherever there is real love for you, take it and be strengthened by it.
As your body, heart, and mind come to know that you are loved, your weakest part will feel attracted to that love. What has remained separated and unreachable will let itself be drawn into the love you have been able to receive. One day you will discover that your anguish is gone. It will leave you because
your weakest self let itself be embraced by your love.

You are not yet there, but you are moving fast. There will be a bit more pain and struggle. You have to dare to live through it. Keep walking straight. Acknowledge your anguish, but do not let it pull you out of yourself. Hold on to your chosen direction, your discipline, your prayer, your work, your guides, and trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear.

http://www.jiwoochoi.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/ji-woo-choi9.jpg

See Yourself Truthfully

See Yourself Truthfully

Henry J.M. Nouwen

You continue struggling to see your own truth. When people who know your heart well and love you dearly say that you are a child of God, that God has entered deeply into your being, and that you are offering much of God to others, you hear these statements as pep talks. You don't believe that these people are really seeing what they are saying.

You have to start seeing yourself as your truthful friends see you.
As long as you remain blind to your own truth, you keep putting yourself down and referring to everyone else as better, holier, and more loved than you are. You look up to everyone in whom you see goodness, beauty, and love because you do not see any of these qualities in yourself. As a result, you begin leaning on others without realizing that you have everything you need to stand on your own feet.

You cannot force things, however. You cannot make yourself see what others see. You cannot fully claim yourself when parts of you are still wayward. You have to acknowledge where you are and affirm that place. You have to be willing to live your loneliness, your incompleteness, your lack of total incarnation fearlessly, and trust that God will give you the people to keep showing you the truth of who you are.

http://www.hancinema.net/photos/posterphoto774.jpg

Give Gratuitously

by Henry J.M. Nouwen

Your love, insofar as it is from God, is permanent. You can claim the permanence of your love as a gift from God. And you can give that permanent love to others. When others stop loving you, you do not have to stop loving them. On a human level, changes might be necessary, but on the level of the divine, you can remain faithful to your love.

One day you will be free to give gratuitous love, a love that does not ask for anything in return. One day also you will be free to receive gratuitous love.
Often love is offered to you, but you do not recognize it. You discard it because you are fixed on receiving it from the same person to whom you gave it.

The great paradox of love is that precisely when you have claimed yourself as God's beloved child, have set boundaries to your love, and thus contained your needs, you begin to grow into the freedom to give gratuitously.

http://www.catholicinformationcenter.org/2005-07-22T143716Z_01_DAK01D_RTRIDSP_2_NIGER-HUNGER-GENEROSITY.jpg

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

With Open Hands

With Open Hands,

by Henri Nouwen

Chapter 1: Prayer & Silence

We know there is some connection between prayer and silence, but if we think about silence in our life it seems that it isn’t always peaceful; silence can also be frightening.

One student who had thought deeply about the silence in his life wrote:

Silence is night
and just as there are nights
with no moon and no stars
when you’re all alone
totally alone
when you’re cursed
when you become a nothing
which no one needs —
so there are silences
which are threatening
because there is nothing except
the silence.
Even if you open your ears
and your eyes
it keeps going on
without hope or relief.
Night with no light, no hope
I am alone
in my guilt
without forgiveness
without love.
Then, desperately, I go looking
for friends
then I walk the streets
a body
a sign
a sound
for nothing.

But the are also nights
with stars
with a full moon
with the light from a house
in the distance
and silences which are peaceful
and reflective
the noise of a sparrow
in a large empty church
when my heart wants to sing out
with joy
when I feel that I’m not alone
when I’m expecting
friends
or remember
a couple of words
from a poem I read lately
when I lose myself in a
Hail Mary
or the somber voice of a psalm
when I am me
and you are you
when we aren’t afraid of
each other
when we leave all talk to
the angel
who brought us the silence
and peace.

Just as there are two nights, there are two silences, one is frightening and the other is peaceful. For many, silence is threatening. They don’t know what to do with it. If they leave the noise of the city behind and come upon a place where no cars are roaring, no ships are tooting, no trains rumbling, where there is no hum of radio or television, where no records or tapes are playing, they feel their entire body gripped by an intense unrest. They feel like a fish which has been set on dry land. They have lost their bearings. There are some students who can’t study without a solid wall of music surrounding them. If they are forced to sit in a room without the constant flow of sound, they grow very nervous.

Thus, for many of us, silence has become a real disturbance. There was a time when silence was normal and a lot of racket disturbed us. But today, noise is the normal fare, and silence, strange as it may seem, has become the real disturbance. It is not hard to understand, therefore, that people who experience silence in this way will have difficulty with prayer.

We have become alienated from silence.
If we go to the beach, or on a picnic in the woods, the transistor radio is often our most important companion. Perhaps we should say that we can’t stand the sound of silence.

Silence is full of noise.
The wind murmuring, the leaves rustling, the birds flapping their wings, the waves washing ashore. And even if these noises cannot be heard, there is still the breathing of a quiet man, the motion of his hand over his skin, the swallowing of his throat, and the soft patter of footfalls. But we have become deaf to this thundering silence. It seems that it can’t be heard anymore without the help of amplifiers.

If a person is invited to exchange this noise for silence, it is often a frightening proposal. He feels like a child who sees the walls of a house collapse and suddenly finds himself in an open field, or like a woman who is violently stripped of her clothing, or like a bird town away from its nest. His ears begin to ache because the familiar sounds are missing and his body needs that noise as a downy blanket which kept it warm. The man who is thus sent into silence is like the dope addict who must go through the painful withdrawal process.

But still more difficult than getting rid of that surrounding din is the achievement of inner silence, a silence of the heart which goes beyond every man. It seems that a person who is caught up in all that noise has lost touch with his own inner self. The questions which are asked from within go unanswered. The unsure feelings are not cleared up and the tangled desires are not straightened out, the confusing emotions are not understood. All that remains is a chaotic tumble of feelings which have never had a chance to be cured because the man constantly let himself be distracted by a world demanding all his attention.

It is hardly a surprise, therefore, that when all the daily racket is shut off, a new noise turns on, rising out of all those vague feelings which scream for attention. The person who enters a quiet room still doesn’t experience inner silence. When there is no one to talk to, and no one to listen to, an interior discussions starts up which almost seems to get out of hand. The many unsolved problems demand attention, one care forces itself upon the other, one complaint rivals the next, all plead for a hearing. Sometimes a person is left powerless in the face of twisted sentiments which he cannot untangle.

It makes you wonder if the diversion we look for in the many things outside us might not be an attempt to avoid a confrontation with what is inside. "What should I begin when I’m through with all my work?" This question leads many people to flee from themselves and to hold fast to any number of things which make them feel like they’re still busy. It’s as if they were saying: "Where do I turn when I have no more friends to talk with, no music to listen to, no paper to read, and no films to see?" The problem here is not whether a person can live without friends or without feeding his eyes and ears, but that there are many people who can’t stand to be alone, to shut their eyes, to gently push aside all the assorted noises and to sit calmly and quietly.

To be calm and quiet all by yourself is hardly the same as sleeping. In fact, it means being fully awake and following with close attention every move going on inside you. It involves a self-discipline where the urge to get up and go is recognized as a temptation to look elsewhere for what is really close at hand. It is the freedom to stroll in your own yard, to rake up the leaves and clear the paths so you can easily find you way. Perhaps there will be much fear and uncertainty when we first come upon this "unfamiliar terrain," but slowly and surely we begin to see developing an order and a familiarity which summon our longing to stay home.

With this new confidence, we recapture our own life afresh from within. Along with the new knowledge of our "inner space" where feelings of love and hate, tenderness and pain, forgiveness and greed are separated, strengthened or reformed, there emerges the mastery of the gentle hand. This is the hand of the gardener who carefully makes space for a new plant to grow, and who doesn’t pull weeds too rashly, but only uproots those which threaten to choke the young life. Under his gentle regime, a man once again becomes master over his own house. Not only over his day, but over his night as well. Not only when he is awake, but also when he sleeps. For he who has the day, will gain the night as well. Sleep is no longer a strange darkness, but a friendly curtain behind which dreams continue to live and to send out messages which can be gratefully received. The paths of his dreams are as trusty as the paths of his waking hours and there is no longer any need to be afraid.

If we do not shun the silence, all this is possible. But it is not easy. Noise from the outside keeps demanding our attention, and restlessness from within keeps stirring up our anxiety. Many people feel trapped between this temptation and this fear. Since they can’t turn inward, they look for calm in the noises, even when they know they will never find it there.

But whenever you do come upon this silence, it seems as though you have received a gift, one which is "promising" in the true sense of the word.

The promise of this silence is that new life can be born.
It is this silence which is the silence of peace and prayer, because you are brought back to the other who is leading you. In this silence you lose the feeling of being compulsive and you find yourself a person who can be himself along with other things and other people.

Then you realize that you can do many things, but it isn’t necessary. It is the silence of the "poor in spirit," where you learn to see your life in its proper perspectives. In this silence, the false pretenses fade away and you can see the world again with a certain distance, and in the midst of all your cares, you can pray with the psalmist:

If Yahweh does not build the house,
in vain the masons toil;
if Yahweh does not guard the city,
in vain the sentries watch.
(Psalm 127)

Solitude, Community, and Ministry

Solitude, Community & Ministry:

Three Ways to Create Space for God

by Henry J.M. Nouwen


There is a very beautiful story about Jesus that tells us He went up to the mountain to pray and He spent the whole night in solitude with God. In the morning, He came down from the mountain and created a small community around him, giving each one his name and calling them apostles. In the afternoon with that community, He went to a stretch of level ground and there spoke to the crowds about the Good News of God and healed all the sick.

What I find so moving here is that
Jesus went from solitude to community to ministry
. I would like to talk to you about solitude, community and ministry as three ways to create space for God. Let me start talking to you about solitude.I wonder if solitude is important for you. I think for anyone who wants to live a spiritual life, solitude is essential.
Solitude is the place where we can listen to the Voice who calls us the "the beloved."
That is what solitude is. It is being alone with God and hearing a Voice there that says, "You are my beloved, on you my favor rests." I think we really have to keep hearing that Voice, because there is a constant temptation to say we are no good; we are useless. If people really knew how I feel, they wouldn't like me.
I live in a community of people with severe handicaps. The problem is not so much that they have handicaps, but that they think they are not loved. That is true for every human person.
We are always tempted to say that we are no good; people really don't like us. We are always filled with feelings of guilt, feelings of shame, with many worries.
In that way, we really lose touch with the truths about ourselves. The truth is that God loves us, has loved us from all eternity and holds us safe. God has molded us in the depths of the earth, has knitted us together in our mother's womb, and we really belong in God's arms. In that embrace, we can hear again and again, "You are my beloved daughter. You are my beloved son. You are my beloved child."

I think that is why we have to create some solitude in our life so we don't lose touch with that Voice. Otherwise, we keep begging, going around and saying, "Do you love me? Do you care for me?" We become very restless, anxious people who are never sure that we are really safe, that we are really well loved.

Solitude is creating a little space for God in your life where God can speak to you and where in the midst of all the other voices that ask you do this, to go there, and to be involved to death, you can hear that very Gentle Person saying,
"I love you. You are safe. I embrace you. You don't have to beg for love. You are mine and I am yours."


I think that is why Jesus spent the night in prayer, the night in solitude. Sometimes it is hard, because it is night. It is dark and we are not always sure if we are going to hear that Voice, but we have to trust. Once we know that we are the beloved and once we know that we are well held, we can go down from the mountain and start creating community. Every time we live solitude well, we will find ourselves called out of solitude to create community.

There are two qualities of community that I want to talk to you about. They are forgiveness and celebration.
That is what makes community, whether it is a formal community, whether it is family community, whether it is a parish community, or whether it is an intentional community. These things -- forgiveness and celebration -- are essential.

Forgiveness means the willingness to always forgive people for not being able to fulfill all your needs.
I feel that constantly. I expect people to fulfill all my needs. I expect people to love me unconditionally, and they can't. My father cannot, my mother cannot, my brothers and sisters, my church, the people around me cannot. In a way, I always bump into the reality that people are limited and I want them to be unlimited lovers.

Well, I'm disappointed again and again and again. That disappointment should lead me to forgive my fellow human beings for not being God, for not being able to give me all I need and all I desire. I should also ask forgiveness constantly, again and again, that I cannot offer people that unconditional love I would like to offer. People are disappointed in me, also, because I am not being for them what they hoped I could be.

Forgiveness is really essential. I
f you want to live in community, you have to forgive, not once in a while, but every day.
I think that before breakfast you have had ten chances to forgive, just the way you think, the way you feel. You have so much anger, so much jealousy, so much resentment. We have to keep forgiving. Once we forgive, we can celebrate.

Celebration means to lift up the gifts of the people with whom we live.
To lift them up and say, "Hey, brother, hey, sister, I see something beautiful in you and I want to lift it up. I want to celebrate it. I want you to recognize your goodness. You have a gift, a gift of welcome. You have a gift of hospitality; you have a gift of gentleness; you have a gift of humor. I want you to recognize it."

When we forgive people that they cannot give it all, we can celebrate what they have to give us. They can recognize that their gifts are a limited expression of God's unconditional love and a reflection of that. We can rejoice in it and say, "You and you and you all have gifts that make me think of God's unconditional love. If I see you all together, then I start seeing more and more of God right among the people I'm living with."

I discovered that in my community with mentally handicapped people. They have incredible gifts and I rejoice in these gifts more every day. Once we have a community of forgiveness and celebration, then we can go out and do ministry together. We can go out to people and announce Good News.

What is ministry? Well, ministry is very simple. It is to lay down your life for your friends, to let the way you live your life be a source of hope for others. Every human being is called to do ministry -- you and I, wherever we are. It is not actually a thing we do. It happens wherever we go, when
we are living in the spirit of Christ.
I want to give you two words that express ministry -- the word "compassion" and the word "gratitude."

Ministry is to be compassionate. In the midst of a very competitive world where we are always comparing ourself with others and are always fighting -- there is so much rivalry -- we are called to be compassionate. True ministry means, "
I am with you. Even though I can't solve your problems, I am with you. Even though I can't fix all the problems, I am with you. I love you."
Compassion means to be with people where they are hurting; be with people where they are suffering; be with people who don't know what to do. Just be there and say, "I am your brother. I am your sister. I am not going to let you alone. I am going to enter in the place of pain with you and that is where you will find healing."

The second quality of ministry is gratitude. We live in a world that is filled with resentment, cold anger. There is so much resentment in this world and we have to move from resentment to gratitude. Real ministry is to say,
"I am grateful for you.
There is something beautiful in you and I am going to say thank you to you."

Ministry is not just giving but, first of all, it is receiving the gifts of others and being joyful about it. We can do that every moment of our life. We can say, "
There is something beautiful in you and I thank you. I thank you for your goodness, for your gentleness, for your smile, for inviting me, but I thank you for just being you and it is good."
When you are grateful, then gradually people can let go of their resentment, their anger and discover their own beauty. Through compassion and through gratitude, we can really be people who are a gift to the world and be people of joy.

Let me conclude. I want to ask you very simply to give a little time in your life for solitude, a few moments a day to be alone with God and hear the Voice that calls you "the beloved" that says, "You are my beloved daughter. You are my beloved son."
Can you develop a little community in your family, among your friends, in your parish, with people who love you and who care for you in a limited way and live a life of forgiveness and live a life of celebration together? Can you keep going out to the places of hurt, where there are people who are in pain?
Sometimes they are right around you. You don't have to go far. You can just look around in your family, among your friends. Go to people and say, "How are you doing? I see there is some pain there. Can I be with you for a moment?" As you do that, you will discover you will enter into a life of compassion and a life of gratitude. That is the life that Jesus calls us to.
That is the life that Jesus lived and He asks us to live with Him, compassionate and always grateful.


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Forgiveness


Forgiveness

To forgive another person from the heart is an act of liberation. We set that person free from the negative bonds that exist between us. We say, "I no longer hold you offense against you." ... We also free ourselves from the burden of being the "offended one." As long as we do not forgive those who have wounded us, we carry them with us or, worse, pull them as a heavy load. The great temptation is to cling in anger to our enemies and then define ourselves as being offended and wounded by them.
Forgiveness, therefore, liberates not only the other but also ourselves
.
Luke 6, 33 - 37

Choose one bit of emotional garbage that you are clinging to, get rid of it, and get on with your life. In honor of this act, give a gift to someone else who needs a helping hand.

Henry J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith

Friday, January 25, 2008

Let Me Not Run Away

Let Me Not Run Away

Dear Lord, your disciple Peter wanted to know who would betray you. You pointed to Judas but a little later also to him. Judas betrayed, Peter denied you. Judas hanged himself, Peter became the apostle whom you made the first among equals. Lord, give me faith, faith in your endless mercy, your boundless forgiveness, your unfathomable goodness.
Let me not be tempted to think that my sins are too great to be forgiven, too abominable to be touched by your mercy.
Let me never run way from you but return to you again and again, asking you to be my Lord, my Shepherd, my Stronghold, and my Refuge. Take me under your wing, O Lord, and let me know that you do not reject me as long as I keep asking you to forgive me.
Perhaps my doubt in your forgiveness is greater sin than the sins I consider too great to be forgiven.
perhaps I make myself too important, too great when I think that I cannot be embraced by you anymore. Lord, look at me, accept my prayer as you accepted Peter's prayer, and let me not run away from you in the night as Judas did.

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Do We Invite Jesus In?

Do We Invite Jesus in?

It is one of the characteristics of the contemporary society that encounters, good as they may be, don't become good relationships. Thus our life is filled with good advice, helpful ideas, wonderful perspectives, but they are simply added to the many other ideas and perspectives and so leave us "uncommitted." In a society with such an informational overload, even the most significant encounters can be reduced to "something interesting" among many other interesting things.
Only with an invitation to "come and stay with me" can an interesting encounter develop into a transforming relationship.
One of the most decisive moments of the Eucharist - and of our life - is the moment of invitation.
Do we say: "It was wonderful to meet you, thank you for your insights, your advice, and your encouragement. I hope the rest of your journey goes well. Goodbye!" Or do we say: "I have heard you, my heart is changing...please come into home and see where and how I live!"
This invitation to come and see is the invitation that makes all the difference.

Jesus is very interesting person; his words are full of wisdom. His presence is heart-warming. His gentleness and kindness are deeply moving. His message is very challenging.
But do we invite him into our home?
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Open Your Hands

How do I open my closed hands?

Certainly not by violence. Not by a compulsive decision. Perhaps you can find a way to prayer int he words of the angel to the frightened shepherds....Don't be afraid of him who wants to enter that space where you live, or to let him see what you are clinging to so anxiously. Don't be afraid to show the clammy coin which will buy so little anyway. don't be afraid to offer you hate, bitterness, disappointment to him who reveals himself as love. Even if you have little to show, don't be afraid to let it be seen. you keep catching yourself wanting to deceive the other by putting on a semblance of beauty, by holding back everything dirty and spoiled, by clearing a little path that looks very proper. but that is compulsive, forced and artificial.
Rev. 1, 12 - 13, 17 - 18
Lenten Action:
Instead of focusing on the faults of others (which may be mirrors of one's one failings), make a humble assessment of you own act of greed, selfishness, and unkindness. Make amends to those you have hurt.


Henry J.M. Nouwen, With Open Hands

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Seek Conversion


Seek conversion

Jesus challenges us to move in a totally new direction. He asks for conversion - that is to say, a complete interior turnaround, a transformation....Everything within us seems set against this way. And yet - everything within us seems set against this way. and yet - everytime we take a few steps along it, we become aware that something new is happening within us and experience a desire to try yet another step forward. And so,
step by step, we come closer to the heart of God, which is the heart of an undiscriminating, always-forgiving, and inexhaustible love.


Henry J. M. Nouwen, Letters to Marc about Jesus

Matthew 5, 1 - 2; 7, 13 - 14, 21 - 23
Sumber dokumentasi:
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Keep Returning to the Road to Freedom

Keep Returning to the Road to Freedom

When suddenly you seem to lose all you thought you had gained, do not despair.

Your healing is not a straight line. You must expect setbacks and regressions.
Don't say to yourself, "All is lost. I have to start all over again: This is not true. What you have gained, you have gained.

Sometimes little things build up and make you lose ground for a moment. Fatigue, a seemingly cold remark, someone's' inability to hear you, someone's innocent forgetfulness, which feels like rejection - when all these come together, they can make you feel as if you are right back where you started. But try to think about it instead as being pulled off the road for a while.

When you return to the road, you return to the place where you left it, not to where you started.

It is important not to dwell on the small moments when you feel pulled away from your progress. Try to return home, to the solid place within you, immediately. Otherwise, these moments start connecting with similar moments, and together they become powerful enough to pull you far away from the road. Try to remain alert to seemingly innocuous distractions.

It is easier to return to the road when you are on the shoulder than when you are pulled all the way into a nearby swamp.

In everything, keep trusting that God is with you, that

God has given you companions on the journey.
Keep returning to the road to freedom.

Sumber dokumentasi:

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Forgiveness

Forgiveness, the Cement of Community Life

"Community is not possible without the willingness to forgive one another "seventy-seven times" (see Matthew 18:22). Forgiveness is the cement of community life. Forgiveness holds us together through good and bad times, and it allows us to grow in mutual love.

But what is there to forgive or to ask forgiveness for?
As people who have hearts that long for perfect love, we have to forgive one another for not being able to give or receive that perfect love in our everyday lives. Our many needs constantly interfere with our desire to be there for the other unconditionally. Our love is always limited by spoken or unspoken conditions.
What needs to be forgiven? We need to forgive one another for not being God!"


~Henri Nouwen

Forgiveness

Forgiveness means that I am continually willing to forgive the other person for not being God--for not fulfilling all my needs. I, too, must ask forgiveness for not being able to fulfill other people's needs.... The interesting thing is that when you can forgive people for not being God, then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God." (Henri HENRI - Higher Education Network of Research Information (University of New Orleans) Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing [Crossroad], cited in Martin E. Marty's newsletter Context)

When we have been wounded by the Church, our temptation is to reject it. But when we reject the Church it becomes very hard for us to keep in touch with the living Christ. When we say, “I love Jesus, but I hate the Church,” we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too.

The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness, at least not officially.
But the Church as an often fallible human organization needs our forgiveness, while the Church as the living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness.

It is important to think about the Church not as “over there” but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer.”

“There are two sides to forgiveness: giving and receiving. Although at first sight giving seems to be harder, it often appears that we are not able to offer forgiveness to others because we have not been able fully to receive it.
Only as people who have accepted forgiveness can we find the inner freedom to give it. Why is receiving forgiveness so difficult? It is very hard to say, “Without your forgiveness I am still bound to what happened between us. Only you can set me free.” That requires not only a confession that we have hurt somebody but also the humility to acknowledge our dependency on others. Only when we can receive forgiveness can we give it.”
Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all of us love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour -- unceasingly.
That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.--Henri Nouwen


Sumber dokumentasi:

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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Relationship

Relationship

Complexity of Intimacy

To love is hard work! In our society, love is sung, written, and spoken about as a beautiful ideal we all desire. But while Madonna sings her love songs and one movie after the other allows us to witness the most intimate ways of love-making, the day-to-day reality is that most friendships do not last long, that many lovers can’t hold on to each other, that countless marriages go sour or break up, and that numerous communities go from crisis to crisis.

There is an immense fragmentation in human relationships.
While the desire for love has seldom been so directly expressed, love in its daily appearance has seldom looked so broken. While in our intensely competitive society the hunger and thirst of friendship, intimacy, union, and communion are immense, it never has been so difficult to satisfy this hunger and quench this thirst.

The world that is central in it all is “relationship.” We desire to break out of our isolation and loneliness and enter into a relationship that offers us a sense of home, an experience of belonging, a feeling of safety, and a sense of being well connected.

But everytime we explore such a relationship, we discover quickly the difficulty of being close to anybody and the complexity of intimacy between people.

When we are lonely and look for someone to take our loneliness away, we are quickly disillusioned. The other, who for a while may have offered us an experience of wholeness and inner peace, soon proves incapable of giving us lasting happiness and instead of taking away our loneliness only reveals to us its depth. The stronger our expectation that another human being will fulfill our deepest desire, the greater the pain is when we are confronted with the limitations of human relationships.

And our need for intimacy easily turns into a demand. But as soon as we start demanding love from another person, love turns into violence, caressing becomes hitting, kissing becomes biting, looking tenderly becomes looking suspiciously, hearing becomes overhearing, and sexual intercourse becomes rape.

Seeing the intense need for love and the frightening explosion of violence so closely connected in our society, we are face with the crucial question: What is the hard work of love?

To Be Called Together

What does it mean to love one another person? Mutual affection, intellectual compatibility, sexual attraction, shared ideals, a common financial, cultural, and religious background, all of these can be important factors for a good relationship, but they do not guarantee love.

I once met a young man and woman who wanted to get married. Both were very good looking, very intelligent, very similar in family background, and very much in love with each other. They had spent many hours with qualified psychotherapists to explore their psychological pasts and to face directly their emotional strengths and weaknesses. In every respect they seemed well prepared to get married and have a happy life together.

Still, the question remains:

will these two people be able to love each other well, not just for a while or a few years, but for a lifetime?
For me, who was asked to accompany these two people, this was not as obvious as it was to them. They had been facing each other for a long time and became secure in their feelings of love for each other,
but would they be able to face together a world in which there is so little support for a lasting relationship?
Where would the strength come from to remain faithful to one another in times of conflict, economic pressure, deep grief, illness, and necessary separations? What would it mean for this man and this woman to love one another as husband and wife until death?

The more I reflected on this, the more I felt that marriage is foremost a vocation. Two people are called together to fulfill the mission that God has given them. Marriage is a spiritual reality. That is to say, a man and a woman come together for life, not just because they experience deep love for each other, but because they believe that God loves each of them with an infinite love and has called them to each other to be living witnesses of that love.

To love is to embody God’s intimate love in a faithful communion with another human being.

Living Witness of God’s Love

All human relationships, be they between parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends, or between members of a community, are meant to be signs of God’s love for humanity as a whole and each person in particular. This is very uncommon viewpoint, but it is te viewpoint of Jesus. Jesus says: “

You must love one another just as I have loved you. It is by your love for one another that everyone will recognize you as my disciples” (John 13, 34-35).

And how does Jesus love you? He says:

“I have loved you, just as the Father has loved me” (John 15, 9).
Jesus’ love for us is the full expression of God’s love for us, because Jesus and the Father are one. “What I say to you,” Jesus says,

“I do not speak of my own accord: it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his works. You must believe me when I say that I am in the FAtehr and the Father is in me” (John 14, 10 – 11).

These words may at first sound very
unreal and mystifying, but they have a direct and radical implication for how we live our relationships on a day-to-day business.

Jesus reveals to us that we are called by God to be living witnesses of God’s love. We become such witnesses by following Jesus and loving one another as he loves us. What does this say about marriage, friendship, and community? It says that the source of the love that sustains these relationships is not the partners themselves but God who calls the partners together.

Loving one another is not clinging to one another so as to be safe in a hostile world, but living together in such a way that everyone will recognize us as people who make God’s love visible to the world.
Not only does all fatherhood and motherhood come from God, but also all friendship, partnership in marriage, and true intimacy and community. When we live as if human relationships are “human-made” and therefore subject to the shifting and changing of human regulations and customs, we cannot expect anything but the immense fragmentation and alienation that characterize our society. But when we claim and constantly reclaim God as the source of all love, we will discover love as God’s gift to God’s people.

Revealing God’s Faithfulness

To be truthful all human relationships must find their source in God and witness to God’s love.

One of the most important qualities of God’s love is faithfulness.
God is a faithful God, a God who fulfills the divine promise and will never let us down. God shows this faithfulness to Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel. God shows this faithfulness to Moses and Aaron and to the people as they move from Egypt to the promised land. But God’s faithfulness goes beyond that. God wants not only to be a God for us, but also a God with us. That happens in Jesus, the Emmanuel who walks with us, talks with us, and dies with us. In sending Jesus to us, God wants to convince us of the unshakeable fidelity of the divine love. Still there is more. When Jesus leaves He says to us,
“I will not leave you alone, but will send you the Holy Spirit.”
The Spirit of Jesus is God’s within us. Here the fullness of God’s faithfulness is revealed. Through Jesus, God gives us the divine Sprit so that we can live a God-like life. The Spirit is the breath of God. It is the intimacy between Jesus and his Father. It is the divine communion. It is God’s love active within us.

This divine faithfulness is the core of our witness. By our words, but mot of all by our lives, we are to reveal God’s faithfulness to the world.

The world is not interested in faithfulness, because faithfulness does not help in the acquisition of success, popularity, and power.
But when Jesus calls us to love one another as he has loved us, he calls us to faithful relationships, not based on the pragmatic concerns of the world, but on the knowledge of God’s everlasting love.

Faithfulness, obviously, does not mean sticking it out together to the bitter end. That is no reflection of God’s love. Faithfulness means that every decision we make in our lives together is guided by the deep awareness that we are called to be living signs of God’s faithful presence among us. And this requires an attentiveness to one another that goes far beyond any formal obligation.

Living Disciples Together

Marriage is one way to be a living witness of God’s faithful love. Once a man and a woman decide to live their married life in this way, their relationship takes on a radically new meaning. Their love for each other, whatever its emotional content, becomes an expression of their discipleship of Jesus; therefore, their main concern is to live that discipleship as a couple.

For many people discipleship is an individual or even private affair. They say: “Religion is my own business. I don’t want to be bothered by others in the practice of my religion, and I won’t bother anyone else in theirs.” This attitude even enters into the intimacy of marriage. A man says: “My wife’s religion is her private affair.” A woman says: “I leave my husband completely free when it comes to his religion.” But his is not living discipleship together.

Marriage looked upon from above is God creating a new communion between two people, so that through that visible and tangible communion a new sign will be present in the world to point people toward God’s love.

When two people commit themselves to live their lives together, a new reality comes into existence. “They become one flesh,” Jesus says. That means that their unity creates a new sacred place. Many relationships are like interlocking fingers. Two people cling to each other as two hands interlocked in fear. They connect because they cannot survive individually. But as they interlock they also realize that they cannot take away each other’s loneliness. And it is then that friction arises and tension increases. Often a breakup is the final result.

But God calls man and woman into a different relationship.

It is a relationship that looks like two hands that fold in an act of prayer. This fingertips touch, but the hands can create a space, like a little tent. Such a space is the space created by love, not by fear.
Marriage is creating a new, open space where God’s love can be revealed to the “stranger”: the child, the friend, the visitor.

This marriage becomes a witness to God’s desire to be among us as a faithful friend.

Choosing Our Friends

The spiritual life is one of constant choices. One of the most important choices is the choice of the people with whom we develop close intimate relationships. We have only a limited amount of time in our lives. With whom do we spend it and how? That’s probably one of the most decisive questions of our lives. It is not without reason that parents are very concerned about who their children bring home as playmates, friends, or lovers. They know that much of their children’s happiness will depend on those they choose to be close to.

To whom do we go for advice? With whom do we spend our free evenings? With whom are we going on vacation? Sometimes we speak or act as if we have little choice in the matter. Sometimes we act as though we will be lucky if there is anyone who wants to be our friend. But that is a very passive and even fatalistic attitude. If we truly believe that God loves us with an unlimited, unconditional love, then we can trust that there are women and men in this world who are eager to show us that love. But we cannot wait passively until someone shows up to offer us friendship. As people who trust in God’s love,

we must have the courage and the confidence to say to someone through whom God’s love becomes visible to us: “I would like to get to know you, I would like to spend time with you. I would like to develop a friendship with you. What about you?”

There will be no’s, there will be the pain of rejection. But when we determine to avoid all no’s and all rejections, we will never create the milieu where we can grow stronger and deepen in love. God became human for us to make divine love tangible. That is what incarnation is all about. That incarnation not only happened log ago, but it continues to happen for those who trust that God will give us the friends we need. But the choice is yours!

Sumber dokumentasi:

Henry J.M. Nouwen, Here and Now; Living in the Spirit (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 123 – 132.

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