Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Nouwen Meditation: Accept Your Whole Self — the Light and the Dark

Now & Then Podcast
In this week's episode of Henri Nouwen, Now & Then, Henri Nouwen concludes his powerful talk on how every Christian is called to become a peacemaker through prayer, non-violent resistance, and community. Recorded 40 years ago, Henri's challenge is perhaps timelier and more meaningful today than ever before.

DAILY MEDITATION | JANUARY 17, 2023
Accept Your Whole Self — the Light and the Dark
It is very difficult for each of us to believe in Christ’s words, “I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners. . . .” Perhaps no psychologist has stressed the need of self-acceptance as the way to self-realization so much as Carl Jung. For Jung, self-realization meant the integration of the shadow. It is the growing ability to allow the dark side of our personality to enter into our awareness and thus prevent a one-sided life in which only that which is presentable to the outside world is considered as a real part of ourselves. To come to an inner unity, totality and wholeness, every part of our self should be accepted and integrated. Christ represents the light in us. But Christ was crucified between two murderers and we cannot deny them, and certainly not the murderers who live in us.
Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning.

ECCLESIASTES 7:20 (NRSV)
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