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Seven or eight years ago I read Henri Nouwen's body of work in the order that he wrote it so that I might better understand his spiritual journey toward transformation. By the end of that year of reading I had come to a place of comfort with him. His words and ideas were very familiar to me after thirty plus books, and from my perspective he had become quite a good friend. One of the spiritual practices that seems to accompany my time with Nouwen is the Prayer of Examen. I find that I long to really look at my self and my choices when I am steeped in his work. Obviously that's because he is consistently looking at himself. He reveals in his writing both his own humanness and his need to affirm for himself that he is God's beloved son.

After that year my interest turned to other teachers and spiritual masters and yet I carried the experience of Henri Nouwen with me as I continued my own searching and teaching. When we planned the schedule for LTM last November I prayerfully discerned that it would be a good thing to revisit the work of this great man and then spend a day or two sharing some of his thoughts with our community.

The idea that he gifted me with that I am journaling about and praying about today is this:

Inner pain reveals to you how you are called to live
in solidarity with a broken, human race.

Culturally we spend so much time and energy avoiding our pain. We have mastered very creative ways of numbing ourselves so that we don't feel too much of anything. Perhaps that is one of the reasons we can so readily turn our heads when our brothers and sisters are suffering and in need of our love and care.

My prayer for today is that I can face my own pain and then bear witness to the pain of my brothers and sisters.