"Who Are We?" from Henri Nouwen

WHO ARE WE?

Henri J.M. Nouwen
Exploring our Christian Identity
(excerpt from the taped message)

You are:
a. A child of God
b. the one who I call my child (son/daughter)
c. I hold you in the palm of my hand
d. I have engraved you on the palms of my hand
e. I have fashioned you in the depths of the earth
f. I have molded you together in your mother’s womb
g. You belong to me/I belong to you
h. You and I are united in love from all eternity
i. Before your mother, father, brothers, sisters, teacher, your school touched you
I loved you
I called you
I held you safe
I saw you
I embraced you
j. You are my child, my daughter. You belong to me.
We need to hear this voice and keep hearing Him say, You are mine.
The Spiritual Life is a life in which you more and more and more hear

that voice,

in which you come gradually in touch with the mysterious truth:
That you were loved
that you were cared for
and looked at with immense affection,

long before you entered into this little world, into clock time
I have called you from all eternity
I have loved you from all eternity
You belong to me
I am your lover
I love you not because you did good things
I love you not because you have a lot of things
I love you not because people speak well of you

or you have so many talents

I love you because I love you
because I love you
Because I love you.
As my child, who belongs to me, I am sending you into the world
where people will laugh at you
where people will praise you
Where people will reject you
Where people will accept you
Where people will speak well of you
Where people will speak bad of you.
Whatever happens in the world, you do NOT belong to that world
You belong to Me, long long before you could even think, speak, talk, or love, yourself
You belong to God from all eternity and you are sent into the world for a little moment

and called back

to be,

for all eternity,

in that great embrace of love.

"Sacred Companions": Quotes

quotes from Sacred Companions by David Benner


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Embarking on the journey of Christian spiritual transformation is enrolling in the divine school of love. Our primary assignment in this school is not so much study and practice as letting ourselves be deeply loved by our Lord.
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If we are to become great lovers, we must return again and again to the love of the Great Lover. Thomas Merton reminds us that the root of Christian love is not the will to love but the faith to believe that one is deeply loved by God.
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Holiness is becoming like GOD with whom we live in intimate relationship. It is acquiring His Spirit and allowing spirit to be transformed by Spirit.
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The unique self I am called to be is never a self I simply dream up and decide I'd like to be...
the self that I actually am in Christ... my eternal self... the self I am intended to be... is the ONLY self that will allow me to be truly whole and holy
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What then should be crucified?
...my ways of living apart from God's will
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sin is ultimately a refusal to believe that what GOD wants is my happiness and fulfillment... I am tempted to sin-to take my life into my own hands...
As I become convinced that God wants nothing more than my fulfillment, surrender to His will is increasingly possible.
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Christian spirituality is about becoming all we were meant to be...
becoming great lovers who are
whole and holy because we have begun to
discover our true self-in-Christ
becoming truly and fully human
and truly and fully ourselves
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our sinful and false ways of being are what we are to crucify...

Jesus knew who HE was before GOD and in GOD. HE could therefore resist temptations to live HIS life out of a false center based on
possessions,
actions,
or the esteem of others

Merton suggests that at the core of our false ways of being there is always a sinful refusal to surrender to God's will.
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Henri Nouwen describes the nurture of inner stillness as the cultivation of solitude of the heart. Such solitude is not a state of relaxation. Nor is it simply a matter of being alone. Solitude of heart comes from attentiveness to the presence of God. It is the prayer of spirit to Spirit, a prayer of attunement, not necessarily of words. It is a response of surrender to the Spirit of Jesus who offers us rest for our souls.
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Soul hospitality is also a gift of safety. Think of feeling safe enough with another person that without weighing words or measuring thoughts you are able to pour yourself out, trusting that the other person will keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away....

Soul friendship is the gift of a place where anything can be said without fear of criticism or ridicule. It is a place where masks and pretensions can be set aside. It is a place where it is safe to share deepest secrets, darkest fears, most acute sources of shame, most disturbing questions or anxieties. It is a place of grace- a place where others are accepted as they are for the sake of who they may become.
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In dialogue I attempt to share how I experience the world and seek to understand how you do so. In this process each participant touches and is touched by others… In dialogue I meet you as a person, not an object. Objectification of people is the heritage of the professionalization of helping relationships. It is also the great enemy of distinctly Christian soul care. When we treat others as objects, even for benevolent reasons, we rob them of their humanity…
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The precondition of dialogue is respect. Nothing helps me do that more than seeing the other person through the eyes of Christ… through the eyes of Christ, I see their worth and dignity. I also see what they can become, not simply what they are....
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Respect is the foundation of dialogue, and Christians have a unique resource for offering it: eyes of faith that allow us to see those we encounter as deeply loved by God and bearing HIS image….
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Dialogue involves the risk of revealing what is most precious to me. If I remain in a safe zone of opinions, facts, and information, I have not exposed my deepest self. Nor have I ventured to the place of deep encounter with others that is called dialogue… What I do or say is not ultimately all that important. The most important thing I can do is to help the other person be in contact with the gracious presence of Christ. If I bring anything of value to the meeting it is that I mediate divine grace.
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At their best, Christian friends help each other discern God’s presence, recognize it as a presence of grace, come to trust that grace and surrender to it more freely.
Sacred friends mediate God’s grace and help others recognize and respond to it. Put another way, they help each other discuss and embrace God’s will.
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But God’s will is never that we simply comply with His desires. God’s will is that we surrender to His love
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If we are to
become GREAT LOVERS
we must return again and again
to the GREAT LOVE
of the GREAT LOVER.
Thomas Merton reminds us that
the root of Christian love
is NOT the WILL to love
but the FAITH TO BELIEVE
one is
deeply loved by GOD
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God's unconventional approach to problems

Here is a clip from Drawing Close by Graham Cooke :

The Holy Spirit wants to do two things with us: First, He intends to get us to a place where we trust God for everything and with everything; and second, He seeks to bring us to a place where He can trust us. The Father will always trust what He sees manifested of the Son in our lives.... the inhabitation of Jesus. It's a pleasure to trust God, knowing that His great love will catch us, even if we fall off the edge of a cliff. This great God will send us into battle against impossible odds with a seemingly ludicrous battle plan March around the enemy for seven days and then shout, He'll say, winking at you the whole time. "Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves," He says (Luke 10:3). Fortunately, you're a lamb with a Lion as friend.

"Sex God" by Rob Bell

Clips from Sex God by Rob Bell

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And when we begin to sort through all of the issues surrounding our sexuality, we quickly end up in the spiritual,

because this

is always about that...

Sex. God. They’re connected. And they can’t be separated. Where the one is, you will always find the other. This is a book about how sexuality is the “this” and spirituality is the “that”. To make sense of the one, we have to explore the other.

And that is what this book is about.

[italics in original]

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Sex, God.

“We reflect what God is like and who God is.
A divine spark resides in every single human being.
Everybody.
Everywhere.
Bearers of the divine image…

…deciding who’s hot and who’s not.
It’s an industry, a form of entertainment, a culture…
The problem is that “that” is actually a “she”.
A person.
A woman.
With a name, a history, with feelings.
It seems harmless until you’re that girl- and then it hurts.
It’s degrading.
It’s violating.
It does something to a person’s soul.

Jesus had much to say about what happens when a woman, an image bearer, a carrier of the divine spark, becomes a “that” [Matt 5:27-30]
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Scholars believe that the word sex is related to the Latin word secare, which means “to sever, to amputate, or disconnect from the whole.” This is where we get words like sect, section, dissect, bisect.

Our sexuality, then, has two dimensions. First, out sexuality is our awareness of how profoundly we’re severed and cut off and disconnected. Second, our sexuality is all of the ways we go about trying to reconnect....

For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people involving physical pleasure. But that’s only a small percentage of what sexuality is. Our sexuality is all the ways we strive to reconnect with out world , with each other, and with God....

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...the Red Light District in Amsterdam is so sexually repressed...
There are lots of people “having sex” night and day, but that’s all it is. There’s no connection...

And so in the Red Light District there’s lots of physical interaction and no connection. There are lots of people having lots of physical sex- for some its their job- and yet it’s not a very sexual place at all...

When its just sex, then that’s all it is. It leaves the person deeply unconnected.

You can be having sex with many, and yet you’re alone. And the more sex you have, the more alone you are.

And it’s possible to be sleeping alone, and celibate, and to be very sexual. Connected with many.

It’s also possible to be married to somebody and sharing the same bed and be very disconnected. It’s possible to be married to somebody and sharing the same bed and even having sex regularly and still be profoundly disconnected....

And so they’re sleeping together, but they’re really sleeping alone.
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If marriage is meant to show people what the oneness of God is like, what happens when everybody is one in the presence of God?

If marriage is a picture of something else, what would happen to marriage if we found ourselves living in the midst of that something else?

Is sex in its greatest, purest, most joyful and honest expression a glimpse of forever?

Are these brief moments of abandon and oneness and ecstasy just a couple of seconds or minutes of how things will be forever?

Is sex a picture of heaven?...

Maybe Jesus knew what was coming and knew that whatever we experience here will pale compared with what awaits everyone.

Do you long for that?

Because that's the center of Jesus' message.

An invitation.

To trust that it's true,

to trust that it's real,

to trust that God is actually going to make all things new.
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Who I am in Christ

(from "He Restoreth My Soul" by Donna Fiorini)

1. I am able. (Phil. 4: 13)
2. I am abounding in grace. (II Cor. 9:8)
3. I am above and not beneath. (Deut. 28: 13)
4. I am accepted. (Eph. 1 :6)
5. I am an ambassador for Christ. (II Cor. 5:20)
6. I am anointed. (1 John 2:20)
7. I am anxious for nothing. (Phil. 4:6)
8. I am the apple of His eye. (Zech. 2:8)
9. I have authority over the devil. (Luke 9: 1)
10. I am beautiful. (Psalm 149:4)
11. I am becoming a mature person. (Eph. 4: 13)
12. I am becoming conformed to Christ. (Rom. 8:29)
13. I am a believer. (Rom.lO:9)
14. I belong to God. (John 17:9)
15. I am blessed. (Eph.l :3)
16. I am blood bought. (I Cor. 6: 19,20)
17. I am bold. (Prov. 28: 1)
18. I am a branch of the True Vine. (John 15:5)
19. I am called. (T Peter 5: 1 0)
20. I am cared for. (I Peter 5: 7)
21. I am a child of God. (John I: 12)
22. I am cherished. (Eph. 5:29)
23. I am chosen. (l Peter 2:9)
24. I am a co-heir with Christ. (Rom. 8: 17)
25. I am comforted. (Jer. 31: 13)
26. I am confident. (I John 4: 17) ,
27. I am confident of answers to prayer. (I John 5: 14, 15)]
28. I am confident He will never leave me. (Heb. 13:5,6)
29. I am a conqueror. (Rom. 8:37) ,
30. I am courageous. (l Chron. 28:20)
31. I am created in His image. (Gen. 1 :27)
32. I am crucified with Him. (Gal. 2:20)
33. I am dead to sin. (Rom. 6: 11)
34. I am a delight. (Psalm 147: 1)
35. I am delivered. (Psalm 107:6)
36. I am determined. (Phil. 4: 13)
37. I am disciplined. (Heb. 12:5-11)
38. I am empowered to obey. (Phil. 2: 13)
39. I am enlightened. (Eph. I: 18)
40. I am faithful. (Rev. 17: 14)
41. I am far from oppression. (Isaiah 54: 14)
42. I am favored. (Job 10: 12)
43. I am filled with the fruit of the Spirit. (Gal. 5:22,23) .
44. I am filled with the knowledge of His will. (Co 1. 1 :9)
45. I am filled with joy. (John 17: 13)
46. I am a finished product in progress. (Phil. 1:6)
47. I am fighting the good fight of faith. (I Tim. 6: 12)
48. I am forgiven. (Eph. 1 :7)
49. I am free. (John 8:36)
50. I am gifted; (Rom. 12:6)
51. I am God's child. (John 1: 1
52. I am granted grace in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 5:17,20)
53. I am guarded by God's peace. (Phil. 4:7)
54. I am the head, not the tail. (Deut. 28: 13)
55. I am healthy. (Deut. 7: 15 )
56. I am holy. (Eph. 1 :4)
57. I am humble. (Phil. 2:24)
58. I am the image of God. (Gen. 1 :27)
59. I am an imitator of God. (Eph. 5: 1)
60. I am indwelt by His Spirit. (Rom. 8: 11)
61. I am inseparable from His love. (Rom. 8:35)
62. I am joyful. (Phil. 4:4)
63. I lack no wisdom. (James 1 :5)
64. I am a light in a dark place. (Acts 13:47)
65. I am loved. (John 3: 16)
66. I am loyal. (Psalm 86:2)
67. I am mighty in God. (Luke 10: 19)
68. I have the mind of Christ. (I Cor. 2: 16)
69. I am a minister of reconciliation. (II Cor. 5: 18,19)
70. I am a mountain mover. (Mark 11 :22,23)
71. I am prosperous. (Psalm 1 :3)
72. I am protected. (Psalm 91: 14)
73. I am provided for. (Matt. 6:33)
74. I am reconciled to God. (Rom. 5: 10)
75. I am redeemed. (Gal. 3:13)
76. I am His representative. (Matt. 5: 16)
77. I am rich. (I Cor. 8:9)
78. I am righteous. (Eph. 4:22)
79. I am rooted and built up in Him. (Coi. 2:7)
80. I am safe. (Psalm 4:8)
81. I am satisfied. (leI'. 31: 14)
82. I am secure. (Deut. 33: 12)
83. I am sheltered. (Psalm 91: 1)
84. I am stable. (Isaiah 33:6)
85. I am standing in His grace. (Rom. 5:2)
86. I am standing firm in Christ. (II Cor. 1 :21)
87. I am strong in the Lord. (1 Cor. 1 :8)
88. I am transformed. (II Cor. 3: 18)
89. I am triumphant. (II Cor. 2: 14)
90. I am unafraid. (Is. 44:2; 51:12)
91. I have understanding. (II Tim. 2:7)
92. I am valuable. (Luke 12:24)
93. I am living in victory. (I Cor. 15:57)
94. I am a warrior. (II Cor. 10:4)
95. I am in a wealthy place. (Psalm 66: 12)
96. I am being made whole. (Mark 5:34)
97. I am wise. (Prov. 2:6)
98. I am His worshipper. (Psalm 95:6)
99. I am worthy. (Rev. 3:4)
100. I am yielded to God. (Rom. 6:13)

Self Evaluation

From Serenity A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery Complete with New Testament Psalms & Proverbs :

"Step 10 encourages the taking of a personal inventory, which, for recovering persons, should be a daily process. Here are five components of this ongoing inventory:

1) What are our needs? These include basic needs, such as the need for love, acceptance, and security. Do we recognize these needs? Are they being met in some reasonable fashion?

2) What are out feelings? Especially we need to allow grief feelings to surface and be expressed. We also need to watch out for deep feelings of resentment, because resentment covers anger, anger covers hurt, hurt usually covers fear, and again, the deepest fear is that our basic human needs are not being met. In relationships we fear being rejected or abandoned.

3)What counterfeit, codependent, addictive means are we using in trying to meet out needs? Are we manipulating others? Are we overcontrolling others? Are we being perfectionistic or compulsive with ourselves or others? Are we attempting to win acceptance by playing the martyr or the victim role in relationships? Are we compulsively rescuing or enabling others? All of these are trigger questions to help us assess whether we are using bogus means to meet our needs.

4)What is our relationship with out own boundaries and with the boundaries of others? It is very important to know we can set appropriate interpersonal boundaries that are neither too rigid nor too fragile. Can we keep people out as we need to? Can we allow people in as we need to? Are we capable of saying yes to other persons and are we capable of saying no as necessary? Also, do we respect the boundaries of others? Do we hear and honor the yeses and noes they give us regarding their boundaries?

5) If we are aware of violating our own boundaries or the boundaries of others, are we able to reestablish new, proper boundaries? Are we able to make amends to those who have been harmed by our violation of their boundaries?

6) Do we admit our wrongs promptly? Unless we admit them promptly, we will store these wrongs which can be rationalized into "wrongs against us." They may then become resentments which sabotage our recovery."

what do I really gain by continually confessing my spouse's sins ?

from Steven Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People":

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If I have a problem in my marriage, what do I really gain by continually confessing my wife's sins ? By saying I am not responsible, I make myself a powerless victim; I immobilize myself in a negative situation. I also diminish my ability ro influence her- my nagging, accusing, critical attitude only makes her feel validated in her own weakness. My criticism is worse than the conduct I want to correct. My ability to positively impact the situation withers and dies.

If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control- myself. I can stop trying to shape up my wife and work on my own weaknesses . I can focus on being a great marriage partner, a source of unconditional love and support. Hopefully, my wife will feel the power of the proactive example and respond in kind. But whether she does or doesn't, the most positive way I can influence my situation is to work on myself, on my being.
Pg 89-90

Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem... Don't argue for other people's weaknesses. Don't argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it- immediately. Don't get into a blaming, accusing mode. Work on things you have control over. Work on you. On be.

Look at the weaknesses of others with compassion, not accusation. It's not what they're not doing or should be doing that's the issue. The issue is your own chosen response to the situation and what you should be doing. If you start to think the problem is "out there," stop yourself. That thought is the problem. People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day will, little by little, expand that freedom.

"But how do you love when you don't love?" "My friend, love is a verb. Love-the feeling- is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?"

Proactive people make love a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifice you make, the giving of self, like a mother bringing a newborn into the world. If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice for others, even for people who offend or do not love in return. If you are a parent, look at the love you have for the children you sacrificed for. Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions. Proactive people subordinate feelings to values. Love, the feeling, can be recaptured. Pg 80

I know this idea is a dramatic paradigm shift for many people. It is so much easier to blame other people, conditioning, or conditions for our own stagnant situation. But we are responsible- "response-able"- to control our lives and to powerfully influence our circumstances by working on be, on what we are.

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