Anna Marta
06-14-2009, 07:09 AM
We had a great week in Denmark with our friends. Their handicapped daughter has turned 18 which means a whole new set of rules under Danish law because she is now considered an adult. We had not seen her for 2 years and were surprised again at just how limited her life really is. She looks more like a 12 year old in size, and it appears, younger than that mentally. She communicates solely with her eyes and her tongue because they are the only parts of her body over which she has any control. Being with they family always puts our life back in perspective! It is amazing how hard we all worked to read her needs and wants and try to please her, which was not all that difficult after a day or 2 as she became the center of the world for all of us.
I was taken back to Henry Nouwen's books and could better comprehend his desire to leave the priesthood. I highly recommend his books for those who are searching for a deeper spiritual life and connection with God. He left the life of a highly respected academic in order to serve and live among the mental and physically handicapped. He learned the joy of being God's hands and heart through several years of searching. He is dead now, but his legacy is a goldmine of experiences.
It seems that my travels this year are taking me through the most precious books in my library again... I am rediscovering Luther, Bonhoeffer, Nouwen, Lewis, Augustine, Br Lawrence, Graham etc. Could God be showing a the red thread that takes me further away from organized religion and the church as a corporation and back to a simple relationship with Himself and individual persons??? - instead of pursuing the group-mania of today's religious expressions?
I am becoming more convinced that "church" is changing in many ways to a form which will provide for the needs of what is quickly becoming a world of increasingly desperate people seeking meaning a safe harbor as storms of all kinds beat on them. The work we are doing here on the forum is more important than anything of which we can conceive, I fear.
Does anyone else see a correlation between a worldwide group of people devoted to learning to love and serve God and help people while being able to recognize SA weeds in the mix? If in the parable of the wheat and the tares, they are permitted to grow up together until the end, then we have a place in the kingdom because it appears that not many are able to know the difference. Hence, we aren't going to get rid of them, but at least we can know the difference and become strong enough so they cannot choke us out. Actually, many of us do seem to have been choked... :(
AM
I was taken back to Henry Nouwen's books and could better comprehend his desire to leave the priesthood. I highly recommend his books for those who are searching for a deeper spiritual life and connection with God. He left the life of a highly respected academic in order to serve and live among the mental and physically handicapped. He learned the joy of being God's hands and heart through several years of searching. He is dead now, but his legacy is a goldmine of experiences.
It seems that my travels this year are taking me through the most precious books in my library again... I am rediscovering Luther, Bonhoeffer, Nouwen, Lewis, Augustine, Br Lawrence, Graham etc. Could God be showing a the red thread that takes me further away from organized religion and the church as a corporation and back to a simple relationship with Himself and individual persons??? - instead of pursuing the group-mania of today's religious expressions?
I am becoming more convinced that "church" is changing in many ways to a form which will provide for the needs of what is quickly becoming a world of increasingly desperate people seeking meaning a safe harbor as storms of all kinds beat on them. The work we are doing here on the forum is more important than anything of which we can conceive, I fear.
Does anyone else see a correlation between a worldwide group of people devoted to learning to love and serve God and help people while being able to recognize SA weeds in the mix? If in the parable of the wheat and the tares, they are permitted to grow up together until the end, then we have a place in the kingdom because it appears that not many are able to know the difference. Hence, we aren't going to get rid of them, but at least we can know the difference and become strong enough so they cannot choke us out. Actually, many of us do seem to have been choked... :(
AM