Hospitality

I wanted to share this passage from good ol' Henri Nouwen entitled "The Virtues of Hospitality"...

"Making one's own wounds a source of healing... this does not call for a sharing of superficial personal pains but for a constant willingness to see one's own pain and suffering as rising from the depth of the human condition which all men share...

"How does healing take place? Many words, such as care and compassion, understanding and forgiveness, fellowship and community, have been used for the healing task of the Christian minister. I like to use the word hospitality, not only because it has such deep roots in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, but also, and primarily, because it gives us more insight into the nature of response to the human condition of loneliness. Hospitality is the virtue which allows us to break through the narrowness of our own fears and to open our houses to the stranger, with the intuition that salvation comes to us in the form of a tired traveler. Hospitality makes anxious disciples into powerful witnesses, makes suspicious owners into generous givers, and makes closed minded sectarians into interested recipients of new ideas and insights...
..."Human withdrawal is a very painful and lonely process because it forces us to face directly our own condition in all its beauty as well as misery. When we are not afraid to enter into our own center and to concentrate on the stirrings of our own soul, we come to know that being alive means being loved. This experience tells us that we can only love because we are born out of love, that we can only give because our life is a gift and that we can only make others free because we are set free by him whose heart is greater than ours. When we have found the anchor places for our lives in our own center, we can be free to let others enter into the space created for them and allow them to dance their own dance, sing their own song, and speak their own language without fear. Then our presence is no longer threatening and demanding but inviting and liberating.

"The minister who has come to terms with his own loneliness and is at home in his own house is a host who offers hospitality to his guests. He gives them a friendly space where they may feel free to come and go, to be close and distant, to rest and to play, to talk and to be silent, to eat and to fast. The paradox indeed is that hospitality asks for the creation of an empty space where the guest can find his own soul.

"Why is this healing ministry? It is healing because it takes away the false illusion that wholeness can be given by one to another. It is healing because it does not take away the loneliness and the pain of another, but invites him to recognize his loneliness on a level where it can be shared. Many people in this life suffer because they are anxiously searching for the man or woman, the event or encounter, which will take their loneliness away. But when they enter a house with real hospitality they soon see that their own wounds must be understood, not as sources of despair and bitterness, but as signs that they have to travel on in obedience to the calling sounds of their own wounds...

"A minister is not a doctor whose primary task is to take away pain. Rather, he deepens the pain to a level where it can be shared."

Next Year... Things Are Gonna Change.

After thought and consideration, Tyler and I have decided to postpone our India trip till next summer, of 2010. Our reasons for doing this is more planning time, to allow more people to go, and to be finished with school when we go. I think this will allow us to be more fully present while we are over there because it will be the dawn of a new era in our lives having graduated weeks before hand.

My only fear is that we will get to busy, or to man opportunities will arise and we will not go to Calcutta. But we decide that, unless the Lord has other plans. On a more present note, and jumping off of the previous post, TRUSTING God has been a wild and peaceful ride. I am learning about God and His faithfulness, how He "rewards those who earnestly seek Him", Hebrews 11:6.

Here's a thought I've been pondering: Expectations. A friend recently stated he wanted to get a tattoo on his body (go figure) that said "No Expectations". This seems to be a fairly go motto to live by as you are never deceivingly looking for something to happen, or wanting yourself to experience something a certain way. Expectations seem to put whatever we put them on, in a box. Containing them to only what we think they should be or what outcome we deem desirable. I find I do this alot. I have expectations mostly of myself- i need to love or serve a certain way. I'm not loving God the way I should, or i'm not loving people the way I ought. These expectations of myself, of what a christian ---should be--- and of others around me place a viel of guilt surrounding all i do and a sense of failure; nothing I do is ever good enough. There is no celebration of a victory, just a sigh as I look at how I didn't quite meet this invisible bar, this standard that I have set for myself- not God. If God clled us to perfection, then Peter would be in hell!

With all these thought out there, and the ability to live without expecting this "perfection" life, the temptation is to apply this same notion to God. This is tricky. While putting expectations on God is somewhat placing Him in a box, He also tells us to do it. Like the Hebrews verse above implies... "He rewards those who earnestly seek Him". I have to believe that if I pursue Him, He will not only see me but reward me- if I ask, I will recieve. I believe the question is HOW will God chose to answer, reward, give... HOW will he choose to act on our behalf. From what I can see in others lives, our no expectations we place on God is the worse box we can put Him in. We think He can do nothing. Or He's to busy, our problem isn't that important. No Expectations bios down to the view that God is not good, but he is neutral. Read the heros of the faith, read the writers of your favorite hymns, talk for 5 minutes with some of your closest friends and it is obvious that our God is good. We can not only Expect that God is good, but we can rest in that and ask for more.

The only dangerous thing out expectations set on God is we narrow down how he speaks, he works, he loves, his presence. I am a HUGE narrower-downer. Anything I don't understand I usually avoid or try to ride off as being useless for the Kingdom. Bottem line: Expectations can be suffocating; they can led to inaction or passionless action. FREEDOM is the key. Expecting God to move is not bad or selfish, it is required of our faith. That's what He promised; we are not alone in this thing.

Love yall, I'll try to keep this blog updated as we get closer to the trip.

Trust...

Trust. It's one of the hardest things to do. You can't have love without it, if you can't trust someone with your heart. Yet if we chose to trust, to allow ourselves to love... we will get hurt. Without a doubt.

But, without trust we will live a numb, self-protected existence. This is one reason why Jesus said, "If you lose your life for my sake, you will find it"...or..."to follow me you must hate your mother, brother, even your own life". Self-preservation = self destruction. Fear, anxiety, low self-esteem all arising from our own "need" for self-preservation.

Trust sets us free.

It frees us from being "double-minded" like James speaks about. It allows us to take up Joy in the "hope not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). It frees us to grow- to trust that voice within that we do hear, and we can act upon that voice. To trust the scriptures we read, or say we need to, everyday but have a hard time acting on them. Our feet will land on solid ground.

I seem to be realizing that most of my worries, anxieties, fears, issues that want to consume my life for hours are rooted in my inability to trust God- thank you for grace.

Here is one of my favorite- i'm talking LOVED- quotes for Henri Nouwen:

"Do you really want to be converted? Are you willing to be transformed? Or do you keep clutching your old ways of life with one hand while with the other you beg people to help you change?
"Conversion is certainly not something you can bring about yourself. It is not a question of willpower. You have to trust the inner voice that shows the way. You know that inner voice. You turn to it often. But after you have heard with clarity what you are asked to do, you start raising questions, fabricating objections, and seeking everyone else's opinion. Thus you become entangled in countless often contradictory thoughts, feelings, and ideas and lose touch with the God in you. And you end up dependent on all the people who have gathered around you.
"Only by attending constantly to the inner voice can you be converted to a new life of freedom and joy."


I am learning to trust that inner voice. To trust that he loves me, that he wants me and that life is better than i thought.