A Study of Human Nature

It has taken me years to finish it.  You read correctly--years.  The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J. M. Nouwen is an insightful meditation.  I didn't read it as a book; I read it as Lectio Divina.  Consequently, it was not read every day, not even every week.  I meditated upon it when I felt I had the appropriate time to dedicate to prayer.

          Nouwen offers many different insightful commentaries on the famous Rembrandt painting, and on the parable that inspired it.  Nouwen is thorough.  He gives us his first impressions.  He was so enraptured by the painting that he traveled to Russia to see it personally.  The book explains what Nouwen extrapolated.

          The structure of The Return of the Prodigal Son is divided into three sections.   The reader is presented with the thoughts of the younger son, first.  The next section is the perspective of the older son.  Finally, we see the father's side of the story.  The reader can identify with all, at one time or another, in his own personal life.

           Which one are you--the younger son, the older, or the father?

            I am happy that I took my time with this book.  It is a course on human nature and the generosity, mercy, and love of God, Our Father.

Prayer is like a Murmuring Stream

The prayer of the heart...is indeed like a murmuring stream that continues underneath the many waves of every day and opens the possibility of living in the world without being of it and of reaching out to our God from the center of our solitude.

This is from Henri Nouwen's The Only Necessary Thing, p.119.

I-I-I  what can I say?

Bad Wolf versus Good Wolf

Did you ever hear of the old Indian tale, where grandfather explains to his grandson that there are two wolves that live inside you, a bad one and a good one?  They constantly fight.  "Who wins?" asks the little grandson.

Grandfather responds.  "The one you feed."

My "cloistered brothers" and I discussed the wolf that won.  Some of them said they grew up feeding the angry wolf.  One said that if came home with a tale of unjust treatment, his father would have handed him a baseball bat and told, "Go get him."  That was his environment--angry wolves.  The strongest wolf won.

Most of us, however, had a little bad wolf, and a lot more good wolf.  Sometimes, peers would feed the angry wolf, and sometimes drugs.

But we grow up and matured.  We can see that it is better to be a good wolf, and we try to feed the good wolf.  The question of "how," was the following discussion.  Adult issues: intimidation, unfair treatment, rejection, etc. give rise to that big, bad, wolf.  But if you feed the good wolf, with Christian love, understanding, and wisdom, you can overcome the bad wolf.  But you have to face down the bad wolf.  This takes courage, and not the courage of the bad wolf.  Adult, Christian courage,  is a moral strength that knows you may not win, but it is the right thing to do.  We decided to call this spiritual courage.

Seguing into my morning reading of Henri Nouwen about "Spiritual Courage," and I found food for the good wolf.  The meditation led me to see that spiritual courage is not doing stunts like Nick Wallenda. That kind of courage feeds, if not the bad wolf,  the ego.  It's a desire to be famous and popular.  Spiritual courage is taking a risk that you might lose fame and popularity.  It's risking your present life to gain eternal life.

Let us pray for spiritual courage to feed the good wolf.