Wisdom for the season from Nouwen

I celebrated my 32 birthday on Saturday. When I was in Tulsa for the Workshop, my aunt, uncle, and 4 full-of-life cousins gave me Henri Nouwen's In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership as a birthday gift. I love Nouwen's work. He is one of the few authors I reread, as I find his words both a continual challenge to my inner-struggles and a source of strength and empowerment for the journey of faith. This book is definitely an example of that dichotomy.

Today, is Tuesday in Holy Week. I find myself at the height of Lenten introspection and reflection, which leads to the Spirit's revelation of personal struggle and sin. Just now, in the wake of writing a confessional email to my parents about some of my own inner compulsions and struggles in my vocational calling, God spoke to me through the little introduction to this short book. I want to leave you with a few of the lines that have challenged me today....

I asked myself, "What decisions have you been making lately and how are they a reflection of the way you sense the future?" Somehow I have to trust that God is at work in me and that the way I am being moved to new inner and outer places is part of a larger movement of which I am only a very small part. (p. 19)

After twenty-five years of priesthood, I found myself praying poorly, living somewhat isolated from other people, and very much preoccupied with burning issues. Everyone way saying that I was doing really well, but something inside was telling me that my success was putting my own soul in danger. I began to ask myself whether my lack of contemplative prayer, my loneliness, and my constantly changing involvement in what seemed most urgent were signs that the Spirit was gradually being suppressed. It was very hard for me to see clearly, and though I never spoke about hell or only jokingly so, I woke up one day with the realization that I was living in a very dark place and that the term "burnout" was a convenient psychological translation for a spiritual death.

Nouwen spends the rest of this little volume discussing the movement from three temptations to three new disciplines: 1) from relevance to prayer; 2) from popularity to ministry; and 3) from leading to being led. (In that way, this will likely be similar to his The Way of the Heart) I look forward to finishing these challenging and insightful words from one of my author-mentors in the faith.