PRAYER
For a man of prayer is, in the final analysis, the man who is able to recognize in others the face of the Messiah and make visible what was hidden, make touchable what was unreachable. The man of prayer is a leader precisely because through his articulation of God’s work within himself he can lead others out of confusion to clarification; through his compassion he can guide them out of the closed circuits of their in-groups to the wide world of humanity; and through his critical contemplation he can convert their convulsive destructiveness into creative work for the new world to come.
~Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society (Doubleday Image Book. an Image Book) (p. 50)
Re: Prayer…I can’t fathom a day without surrendering to HIM in prayer!
you wrote in this post:
God’s work within himself he can lead others out of confusion to clarification; through his compassion he can guide them out of the closed circuits of their in-groups to the wide world of humanity; and through his critical contemplation he can convert their convulsive destructiveness into creative work for the new world to come.
Please forgive my bitter reply to this post. I have yet to see in-groups convert their convulsive destructiveness into creative work. To me they not only multiplying, but getting worst. However, I PRAY that HE will turn such hurtful destructiveness
“into creative work for the new world to come” Very much needed!
This is not a bitter response, Dee. It’s just honest. Thank you!!
An amazing gift to take the word ‘PRAYER’ and explain it, communicate it, and share the intentions of how God desires for it to be understood. Takes much contemplation to just sit with this…thanks.
Yes, just sitting with it is the key. All of Nouwen’s quotes or writing tend to take some contemplation.