Holding All of Life Together
Holding All of Life Together
Saturday of the First Week of Lent – March 7, 2020
The life animated and guided by the Spirit – what we would call a spiritual life – is not separate from our normal, everyday life. We do not step in and out of these two ways of doing life.
I hear some people, for example, talking about their “time for doing” and their “time for being,” as if life is divided into compartments that can be kept separate from one another.
The spiritual life – or life animated by God’s Spirit – is not a life which removes us from the world or which touches only one aspect of our existence. The spiritual life, both being and doing, touches every all of life. It umbrellas everything.
Henri Nouwen holds together these two poles . . . what he calls the “worry-filled life” and the “life of the Spirit.” The goal is not to move back and forth between these two ways of doing life, but rather, to increasingly bring them all under one umbrella, so that the life of God’s Spirit is all of life.
Here is what Nouwen says:
“His kingdom first.” I hope that these words have received some new meaning. They call us to follow Jesus on his obedient way, to enter with him into the community established by the demanding love of the Father, and to live all of life from there. The kingdom is the place where God’s Spirit guides us, heals us, challenges us, and renews us continuously. When our hearts are set on that kingdom, our worries will slowly move to the background, because the many things which made us worry so much start to fall into place. It is important to realize that “setting your heart on the kingdom” is not a method for winning prizes. In that case, the spiritual life would become like winning the jackpot on a TV game show. The words “all other things will be given you as well” express that indeed God’s love and care extend to our whole being. When we set our hearts on the life of the Spirit of Christ, we will come to see and understand better how God keeps us in the palm of his hand. We will come to a better understanding of what we truly need for our physical and mental well-being, and we will come to experience the intimate connections between our spiritual life and our temporal needs while journeying through his world.
But this leaves us with a very difficult question. Is there a way to move from our worry-filled life to the life of the Spirit? Must we simply wait passively until the Spirit comes along and blows away our worries? Are there any ways by which we can prepare ourselves for the life of the Spirit and deepen that life once it has touched us? The distance between the filled yet unfilled life on the one hand, and the spiritual life on the other, is so great that it may seem quite unrealistic to expect to move from one to another. The claims that daily living makes on us are so real, so immediate, and so urgent that a life in the Spirit seems beyond our capabilities.
My description of the worry-filled life and the spiritual life as the two extremes of the spectrum of living was necessary to make clear what is at stake. But most of us are neither worrying constantly nor absorbed solely in the Spirit. Often there are flashes of the presence of God’s Spirit in the midst of our worries, and often worries arise even when we experience the life of the Spirit in our innermost self. It is important that we gradually realize where we are and learn how we can let the life of God’s Spirit grow stronger in us.
[Henri J. M. Nouwen, Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981).]
For Reflection:
o Living a spiritual life is not an addendum to our “regular” lives. It is not an add-on that we tack on to our normal experiences. The spiritual life encompasses all that we are and all that we do.
o I am constantly in process with the spiritual life. I never fully arrive, never completely come to perfection. I am an odd mix of not-filled and filled. Nevertheless, I keep travelling. I stay at the journey.
Saturday of the First Week of Lent – March 7, 2020
The life animated and guided by the Spirit – what we would call a spiritual life – is not separate from our normal, everyday life. We do not step in and out of these two ways of doing life.
I hear some people, for example, talking about their “time for doing” and their “time for being,” as if life is divided into compartments that can be kept separate from one another.
The spiritual life – or life animated by God’s Spirit – is not a life which removes us from the world or which touches only one aspect of our existence. The spiritual life, both being and doing, touches every all of life. It umbrellas everything.
Henri Nouwen holds together these two poles . . . what he calls the “worry-filled life” and the “life of the Spirit.” The goal is not to move back and forth between these two ways of doing life, but rather, to increasingly bring them all under one umbrella, so that the life of God’s Spirit is all of life.
Here is what Nouwen says:
“His kingdom first.” I hope that these words have received some new meaning. They call us to follow Jesus on his obedient way, to enter with him into the community established by the demanding love of the Father, and to live all of life from there. The kingdom is the place where God’s Spirit guides us, heals us, challenges us, and renews us continuously. When our hearts are set on that kingdom, our worries will slowly move to the background, because the many things which made us worry so much start to fall into place. It is important to realize that “setting your heart on the kingdom” is not a method for winning prizes. In that case, the spiritual life would become like winning the jackpot on a TV game show. The words “all other things will be given you as well” express that indeed God’s love and care extend to our whole being. When we set our hearts on the life of the Spirit of Christ, we will come to see and understand better how God keeps us in the palm of his hand. We will come to a better understanding of what we truly need for our physical and mental well-being, and we will come to experience the intimate connections between our spiritual life and our temporal needs while journeying through his world.
But this leaves us with a very difficult question. Is there a way to move from our worry-filled life to the life of the Spirit? Must we simply wait passively until the Spirit comes along and blows away our worries? Are there any ways by which we can prepare ourselves for the life of the Spirit and deepen that life once it has touched us? The distance between the filled yet unfilled life on the one hand, and the spiritual life on the other, is so great that it may seem quite unrealistic to expect to move from one to another. The claims that daily living makes on us are so real, so immediate, and so urgent that a life in the Spirit seems beyond our capabilities.
My description of the worry-filled life and the spiritual life as the two extremes of the spectrum of living was necessary to make clear what is at stake. But most of us are neither worrying constantly nor absorbed solely in the Spirit. Often there are flashes of the presence of God’s Spirit in the midst of our worries, and often worries arise even when we experience the life of the Spirit in our innermost self. It is important that we gradually realize where we are and learn how we can let the life of God’s Spirit grow stronger in us.
[Henri J. M. Nouwen, Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981).]
For Reflection:
o Living a spiritual life is not an addendum to our “regular” lives. It is not an add-on that we tack on to our normal experiences. The spiritual life encompasses all that we are and all that we do.
o I am constantly in process with the spiritual life. I never fully arrive, never completely come to perfection. I am an odd mix of not-filled and filled. Nevertheless, I keep travelling. I stay at the journey.
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