fellowship of the broken...

I stumbled on these thoughts by Henri Nouwen today. They are beautiful... I'm going to wrap my life around this...

"Our tendency is to run away from the painful realities or to try to change them as soon as possible. But cure without care makes us into rulers, controllers, manipulators, and prevents a real community from taking shape. Cure without care makes us preoccupied with quick changes, impatient and unwilling to share each other’s burden...

...Every human being has a great, yet often unknown, gift to care, to be compassionate, to become present to the other, to listen, to hear and to receive. If that gift would be set free and made available, miracles could take place. Those who really care can receive bread from a stranger and smile in gratitude, can feed many without even realizing it. Those who can sit in silence with their fellowman not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart, can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken. . . .

To care means first of all to empty our own cup and to allow the other to come close to us. It means to take away the many barriers which prevent us from entering into communion with the other. When we dare to care, then we discover that nothing human is foreign to us...

By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but powerless, not to be different but the same, not to take our pain away but to share it.

Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community."

"receptive before the world..."

My favorite author at the moment is Henri Nouwen. And after coming off of a week of 24/7 prayer at ASU, meeting a bunch of new friends who have the same passion, and just searching for the reality of prayer myself, these ideas really struck a chord. So many times we pray -- trying to change things around us -- when maybe, the real purpose of prayer, is to change us....

"Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched."
-- Henri J. M. Nouwen

"People who pray stand receptive before the world.
They no longer grab but caress
they no longer bite but kiss
they no longer examine but admire."
-- Henri J. M. Nouwen

from the inside out..

A while back, I was getting ready to go to the FutureGen conference, and had to find directions to the hotel. So I did what any digital-native would do, and googled it. But in the search results, I stumbled onto a blog that mentioned FutureGen, and ended up spending a half an hour reading this guy's thoughts about culture and totally connecting with what he had to say.

The ironic part was that even though I loved this guy's heart and the way he thought, it took me a while to figure out who he was. I knew he had to live in the valley (because of the photo he posted of our recent snow) and he also connected with the same people/groups that I love (RobBell, One, Crowder, Miller, etc.)... and then I finally found his profile, and discovered it was Zach Lind (the drummer for Jimmy Eat World).

Where else but the blogosphere can you see someone's heart (and the way they think) before you even know who they are or what they do. Because the truth is, I would have liked this guy just as much if he were a clerk at Walmart. Because its not about our appearances, or our professions, or our status here... its about our thoughts, and our passions, and those moments when you say, "yeah! I am so with you on that one!"

Its like connecting with each other from the inside out...