More from Mr. Nouwen (or is it Doctor?)

So as I continue to journey through this book by Nouwen, I am continually struck by certain passages and feel the need to record them somewhere.

I'm not sure if I like them so much because Nouwen is really reaffirming a lot of things I've been pondering as of late, or if he's shedding such new light on it...

God's really making it more clear to me how He's created my heart. That may sound really funny... "Kourtney, how do you not know your own heart?", but I think that part of growing up, maturing, and growing closer to God is getting to know who He has created you to be. There is so much that clouds our vision and keeps us from really knowing who we truly are versus who we think we are, who we think others want us to be, or even who we think God wants us to be...

So getting to know my heart is an enlightening journey. The more I get to know my heart, the more I understand what God has called me to do with my life. The more I know what makes my heart well up with passion and excitement, and even ache sometimes, the more I know that God is calling me to something specific.

With God's help, I'm weeding out what my own expectations for my own life are, the things I have identified myself with just for the sake of belonging to something, and casting off the things that God does not want for me. The battle of wills is probably the hardest out of those three...

So here's the piece from Nouwen:

"We are not called to respond to generalities but to the concrete facts with which we are confronted day after day. A compassionate man can no longer look at these manifestations of evil and death as disturbing interruptions of his life plan but rather has to confront them as an opportunity for the conversion of himself and his fellow human beings. Every time in history that men and women have been able to respond t the events of their world as an occasion to change their hearts, an inexhaustible source of generosity and new life has been opened, offering hope far beyond the limits of human prediction." Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out

I think that very much like Nouwen had said earlier, it is not for us to become overwhelmed with the state of the world, but we are to respond in an effective way using what God has given us. I think action (versus avoidance) is most often an inconvenience to our plans, our ideas of what our lives should look like, and our level of comfort with the lives we lead. When we are faced with the evil and death in our world, God calls us to respond and we are consequently changed and molded as a result of that God-invoked response. He uses it to make us more into who He wants us to be.

There are so many tragedies that have happened in the history of the world. In school we learn both about the people who oppressed, the people who were oppressed, and those who came to the aid of the oppressed. We learn about the few Christians who helped the Jews in the Holocaust, we learn about the danger they put themselves in to save others. We learn about the Underground Railroad and the risks people took to save others from slavery.

As I remember these benchmarks in history, I can't help but wonder which group I would be in. I have never known oppression like that suffered by those in the Holocaust or the slaves in the US, nor, being exactly who I am today, would I have been one of the oppressed. So that leaves me either as the oppressor or the aid.

Aside from those remaining categories, there still lingers a third fourth group that is NOT mentioned in the history books: the onlookers. There were so many who did absolutely nothing at all. For this precise reason their role is not explored. However, this group makes up a vast majority of the contemporaries of these atrocities.

I think it is obvious which group we would like to identify with: the aids. We want to be the ones swooping in, bearing the name of Christ, extending the loving hand to work to right the wrongs of our times. But that is a scary place to be. It is SO much easier to be the person who does nothing. It is so much easier to pretend the world extends no further than my own sphere of experience and comfort.

Now, please don't picture me up on a soap box... Or perhaps I should just step down and clarify-- I don't think God calls us all to respond in the same way. For some of us, the drastic change, or what Nouwen calls "conversion" keeps us where we are, but shifts our perspective. Not all action will look alike, just like not all of us in the Body of Christ look exactly alike. We need hands, feet, hearts, legs, eyes, ears, pinky fingers.... all of it.

So my journey is to find out what exactly my God invoked reaction is supposed to be. What kind of transformation is He calling me to. How is He calling me to live out my life differently from the onlookers? I think Mexico is the first step... but I feel like this is leading to something so much more...

I can't wait!