" Without the solitude of heart, the intimacy of friendship, marriage and community life cannot be creative. Without the solitude of heart, our relationships with others easily become needy and greedy, sticky and clinging, dependent and sentimental, exploitative and parasitic, because without the solitude of heart we cannot experience the others as different from ourselves but only as people who can be used for the fulfillment of our own, often hidden, needs....."
Whoa. That is some deep stuff. I like deep waters, to be in over my head. Glutton for punishment, some call it.
I have not read this book, nor any of Nouwen's. I read the authors who read him and then try to explain it to me. And even then, I only understand a small slice.
But when I do, oh man! Good stuff. That this loneliness could be God breathed solitude creeping in? Bring it on. A perspective shift is always welcome from above. And by welcome I mean after the tantrums & screaming fits are ceased.
Sad monkey photo from Aden's field trip in April. I have always felt the zoo was a lonely place.
i agree on the zoo... it's corporal captivity. the animals have lost desire to be happy cause they are now domesticated and not created to be. God does amazing things for us when we are alone, and more often than not, leaning on him for support more than usual.
ReplyDeletewow, Nouwen seems like a person who challenges some serious ways of how we live! maybe even how rare it is, in this go-go society, to have quiet time with our God. who alone can rejuvenate and restore us better than any medicine, book or person...
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