Sunday, March 31, 2013

Daily Meditation: Travelling With the Eyes of God

Henri Nouwen Society - Daily Meditation
Sunday March 31, 2013

Travelling With the Eyes of God

 

Travelling - seeing new sights, hearing new music, and meeting new people - is exciting and exhilarating.  But when we have no home to return to where someone will ask us, "How was your trip?" we might be less eager to go.  Travelling is joyful when we travel with the eyes and ears of those who love us, who want to see our slides and hear our stories.

 

This is what life is about.  It is being sent on a trip by a loving God, who is waiting at home for our return and is eager to watch the slides we took and hear about the friends we made.   When we travel with the eyes and ears of the God who sent us, we will see wonderful sights, hear wonderful sounds, meet wonderful people ... and be happy to return home.

 

- Henri J. M. Nouwen 

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Text excerpts taken from Bread for the Journey, by Henri J.M. Nouwen, ©1997 HarperSanFrancisco. All Scripture from The Jerusalem Bible ©1966, 1967, and 1968 Darton, Longman & Todd and Doubleday & Co. Inc. Photo by V. Dobson.
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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Life Contains Death


Life Contains Death

Howard Thurman


"He that believeth...shall never die" is no empty phrase of Christian piety. It is rather a recognition of eternal process inherent in the experience of life itself. Despite the universal character of the fact, the experience itself is always private, always personal.

The shadow of death of which the Psalmist speaks is the thing that strikes the terror, the resounding echo of which leaves no ear unassailed. But death itself has no such power because the experience of life contains the fact of death.

There is a given element in life--it is the givenness of God. To know this thoroughly is to rob death of its terror and life of its fear.

Source: The Inward Journey

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Daily Meditation: Smiles Breaking Through Tears

Henri Nouwen Society - Daily Meditation
Saturday March 30, 2013

Smiles Breaking Through Tears

 

Dying is a gradual diminishing and final vanishing over the horizon of life.  When we watch a sailboat leaving port and moving toward the horizon, it becomes smaller and smaller until we can no longer see it.   But we must trust that someone is standing on a faraway shore seeing that same sailboat become larger and larger until it reaches its new harbor.   Death is a painful loss. When we return to our homes after a burial, our hearts are in grief.  But when we think about the One standing at the other shore eagerly waiting to welcome our beloved friend into a new home, a smile can break through our tears.

 

- Henri J. M. Nouwen 

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Text excerpts taken from Bread for the Journey, by Henri J.M. Nouwen, ©1997 HarperSanFrancisco. All Scripture from The Jerusalem Bible ©1966, 1967, and 1968 Darton, Longman & Todd and Doubleday & Co. Inc. Photo by V. Dobson.
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Friday, March 29, 2013

Seeing the Cross


Seeing the Cross

N. Gordon Cosby


A personal God, in a very personal act of love, bore my sin--bears my sin. The tangled self-will of us all is only finally retrieved and transformed when we see that he died for us. In the seeing, our heart is broken and our self-will is transformed and the old rebellions are fundamentally dropped. How we fight this! How this cuts across the grain of our self-will. The cross is an embarrassment to us--that one should do on our behalf what we cannot do.

Strange how little we understand the cross after all these years. Is it because we can't afford to? If we let ourselves see, we would be irrevocably bound in obedience to this Saviour for time and eternity.

Source: sermon

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Daily Meditation: The Autumn of Life

Henri Nouwen Society - Daily Meditation
Friday March 29, 2013

The Autumn of Life

 

The autumn leaves can dazzle us with their magnificent colors:  deep red, purple, yellow, gold, bronze, in countless variations and combinations.  Then, shortly after having shown their unspeakable beauty, they fall to the ground and die.  The barren trees remind us that winter is near.   Likewise, the autumn of life has the potential to be very colorful:  wisdom, humor, care, patience, and joy may bloom splendidly just before we fall to the ground and die.   

 

As we look at the barren trees and remember our dead, let us be grateful for the beauty we saw in them and wait hopefully for a new spring.

 

- Henri J. M. Nouwen 

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Text excerpts taken from Bread for the Journey, by Henri J.M. Nouwen, ©1997 HarperSanFrancisco. All Scripture from The Jerusalem Bible ©1966, 1967, and 1968 Darton, Longman & Todd and Doubleday & Co. Inc. Photo by V. Dobson.
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Thursday, March 28, 2013

Who Baked the Bread?


Who Baked the Bread?

Katherine Dale Makus


Who baked the bread
That Jesus blessed
And broke, and shared
That Passover supper, when he said,
"This is my body
Broken for you"?
Who made the wine,
When he passed the cup,
Saying, "This is my blood,
The blood of the covenant,
Shed for you and for many.
The fruit of the vine
I shall not taste again
Until I taste it new
In the Kingdom of God"?
Who made the wine?

Was it a woman who tended the vine,
Pressed the grapes, and made the wine;
Who planted the field, threshed the wheat,
And baked the bread for others to eat?

And afterwards, did a woman come
To clear the cup; to mop,
Perhaps, a single careless drop
Of wine, of God's blood shed;
To gather every scattered crumb
Of broken body, broken bread?

Did a woman, coming to clean the room,
Find grace in the fragments left behind,
As women, later, would come to find
An angel and an empty tomb?

Source: Daughters of Sarah (Mar-Apr 1988)

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Daily Meditation: Where Mourning and Dancing Touch Each Other

Henri Nouwen Society - Daily Meditation
Thursday March 28, 2013

Where Mourning and Dancing Touch Each Other

 

"[There is] a time for mourning, a time for dancing" (Ecclesiastes 3:4).  But mourning and dancing are never fully separated.  Their "times" do not necessarily follow each other.  In fact, their "times" may become one "time."  Mourning may turn into dancing and dancing into mourning without showing a clear point where one ends and the other starts.

 

Often our grief allows us to choreograph our dance while our dance creates the space for our grief.  We lose a beloved friend, and in the midst of our tears we discover an unknown joy.  We celebrate a success, and in the midst of the party we feel deep sadness.  Mourning and dancing, grief and laughter, sadness and gladness - they belong together as the sad-faced clown and the happy-faced clown, who make us both cry and laugh.  Let's trust that the beauty of our lives becomes visible where mourning and dancing touch each other.

 

- Henri J. M. Nouwen 

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Read and reflect this Lent on The Return of the Prodigal Son. Join us anytime. Click here for details.
 
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Text excerpts taken from Bread for the Journey, by Henri J.M. Nouwen, ©1997 HarperSanFrancisco. All Scripture from The Jerusalem Bible ©1966, 1967, and 1968 Darton, Longman & Todd and Doubleday & Co. Inc. Photo by V. Dobson.
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