February 2008 The Road to Daybreak A Spiritual Journey by Henri J M Nouwen

Continue from ...... God is not in a hurry When I was wondering what to write about tonight, I realized that I often write about my most immediate concerns, while the deeper stirrings of the spirit remain unrecorded. Today I was reading Two Dancers in the Desert, a book by Charles Lepetit about the life of the spiritual father of the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus, Charles de Foucauld. While reading it, I was reminded again of my deepest concern: how to come to a deeper experience of God in my life. I have been very concerned with this question since I feel that my life at Harvard University led me in the wrong directiion; that is why I finally left. Now that I am free to go the way of prayer, fasting, and soilitude, I sense that without a concentrated effort I will transform my life here into another Harvard. I feel a burning desire to preach the Gospel, but I know in my heart that now is the time to pray, to read, to meditate, to be quiet, and to wait until God clearly calls me. I am happy with the clarity I have. It makes no sense to preach the Gospel when I have allowed no time for my own conversiion. This is clearly a time for hiddenness and withdrawal from lecturing and giving retreats, courses, seminars, and workshops. It is a time for being alone with God. I feel a tension within me. I have only a limited number of years left for active ministry. Why not use them well? Yet one word spoken with a pure heart is worth thousands spoken in a state of spiritual turmoil. Time given to inner renewal is never wasted. God is not in a hurry. Sheila Cassidy's Hospice Shelia Cassidy, the English doctor who was imprisoned and tortured two years after General Pinochet took power in Chile, has written me a fine letter. I have never met her, but our lives have occasionally touched each other's, mostly through our writings. Today, I read her short description of a hospice, and I was so touched by it that I would like to copy some of her words into this journal: Medically speaking, hospices exist to provide a service of pain and symptom control for those for whom active anti-cancer treatment is no longer appropriate - there is always something that can be done for the dying, even if it's only having the patience and the courage to sit with them. Most lay people imagine that hospices are solemn, rather depressing places where voices are hushed and eyes downcast as patients and their families await the inevitable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hospice care is about life and love and laughter, for it is founded upon two unshakable beliefs: that life is so precious that each minute should be lived to the full, and that death is quite simply a part of life, to be faced openly and greeted with the hand outstretched. One of the hallmarks of hospice life is celebration: cakes are baked and champagne uncorked at the first hint of a birthday or anniversary, and administrators, nurses, and volunteers clink glasses with patients and their families. As I read this, I was struck that much, if not all, that Shelia Cassidy says can be said of L'Arche as well. A hospice is for the dying who cannot be cured of their disease; L'Arche is for the handicapped whose handicap cannot be removed. Both proclaim loudly the preciousness of life and encourage us to face reality with open eyes and outstretched hands. Both are places of celebration in which the certainty of the present is always much more important than the uncertainty of the future. Both are witnessess to the paradox that the most unlikely people are chosen by God to make us see. Sheila Cassidy and Jean Vanier found their vocations in very different ways, but their common faith in Jesus and his Gospel has given them a remarkably similar vision. Leaving Harvard My decision to leave Harvard was a difficult one. For many months I was not surer if I would be followng or betraying my vocation by leaving. The outer voices kept saying, "You can do so much good here. People need you!" The inner voices kept saying, "What good is it to preach the Gospel to others while losing your own soul?" Finally, I realized that my increasing inner darkness, my feelings of being rejected by some of my students, colleagues, friends, and even God, my inordinate need for affirmation and affection, and my deep sense of not belonging were clear signs that I was not following the way of God's spirit. The fruits of the spirit are not sadness, loneliness, and separation, but joy, solitude, and community. After I decided to leave Harvard, I was surprised that it had taken me so long to come to that decision. As soon as I left, I felt so much inner freedom, so much joy and new energy, that I could look back on my former life as a prison in which I had locked myself. I feel no regrets about my time at Harvard. Though in a divinity school, I had a real chance to be in a thoroughly secular university environment, and I had the opportunity to experience joy and fear in speaking directly about Jesus. I came to know many students and made some close friends, and saw more clearly than ever my own temptations and weaknesses. I feel warmly towards many of the people I met at Harvard, but now that I have left I also feel compassion for them. I now see so clearly that the ambition to achieve academically that keeps them bound is the same ambition that, without my fully knowing it, kept me bound too.

- To Be Continued - © Copyright Shalom 2008. All rights reserved.