Notes in Nouwen

Saturday after Ash Wednesday:  Luke 5:27-28: "and said to him, "Follow me." And leaving everything Levi got up and followed him. 

1996: Went to broomball.--was NOT food for my soul. Came home sad. It was a bar!
1997:  the word was "precious:"-  lunch [Calle Doce] in Oak Cliff with Norma and a walk in Duncanville

This was the day, in 1997, when Norma suggested to me that I work for PCEC...I think that was it. To go into Christian Pastoral Counseling.  I had spent a semester at TWU taking classes to acquire an LPC or an LMFT.  Ruth, my counselor, told me that with my skills, I could be making $100K a year in no time.  I was unhappy at TWU. I had a beautiful woman fall in love with me. I gently told her I was not wired for women.  She took it well enough. 

Norma and I had a wonderful meal in Oak Cliff, my first 'real' experience of 'the city.'  Calle Doce was delightful and the food delicious.  Then she asked me if I'd like to go for a walk in a place where she spent much of her childhood roaming around and thinking about God.  I guess it was a park...sort of.  We walked in delightfully warm sunlight in cool weather, among tall dried Johnson grasses...and she told me about her life.  I told her a bit about mine. 

As we walked, she said, "You know, Cindy, you might want to consider seminary.  Be a minister."  I told her she was crazy.  I liked the idea of a Christian counselor, and working for the church in that capacity...but ministry?  I am the most fallen woman that exists.  You have got to be joking.  And we walked silently for a time...I thought back to my younger days in San Antonio, how I wandered through fields of gold and green...thinking about and looking for God.  I kind of enjoyed knowing that there might be others...wandering and wondering, too. 

Images fly through my head:
the Monet Water Lillies at McNay Art Institute
The Episcopal Church at the top of the hill near Sunset Ridge Shopping Center
St Luke's Episcopal Church and the very kind secretary
Feet on the handle bars, I'd cruise at 30+ mph through stop signs in Alamo Heights and just pray a car wouldn't come
Broadway Movie theater
Olmos Basin
Bun and Barrel
Ivy Lane
St Andrews UMC (when it was NOT three blocks long!)
Oak trees older than Texas
the pink house that burned in a fire
Sunken garden and giant goldfish (coy)
The house with the bars...where the lady lived whose son was murdered
Neisner's
And St. Pius X...which had a distinct smell, tall skinny windows...and we knelt for our food

Just a few images from Saturday morning rides into nowhere. Alone, God was mine. I didn't have to explain Him or justify Him to anyone. He was mine.  And I was His.  And I wanted nothing else in this life.

How do we explain our consciousness?  How do we explain memory?  How do we learn?  Why do we breath? Why do we experience love and lonliness and anger?  Why are there moments of ecstacy and joy?  Why do we feel abandoned and misunderstood? 

There is an easy meditation:
Be still and know that I am God
Be still and know that I am
Be still and know that I
Be still and know
Be still
Be

Be still and know that I am God:
As we grow up, we want answers.  We are filled with questions and we want answers.  And when the answers don't satisfy us, or we recognize the contradictions in the people we trust and love...we come to an abyss of despair.  In that stillness and suffering of the reality that we must accept that the world has and will continue to let us down, we are confronted with an existential message: "Be still and know that I am God."  Nothing is going to fix the wrongs done to us and others...no amount of justice can replace the loss of innocence and life...so be still my child, be still and know that I am God.  It doesn't make sense, but you are not alone. I am God. I am with you always.

Be still and know that I am:
This God tells us to be still.  What does that mean: I am God?  What is God?  What is a God?  What does God do?  "I am."  I remember reading that in Exodus.  What kind of name is that?  I am.  What a stupid name. Then I learn more.  It can also be translated "I will be who I will be"  Like that helps.  I will be who I will be might mean that God will be what you need, when you need it, in the way you need it, for as long as you need it.  Okay. That might be a bit more comforting.  "Be still and know that I am Fred." is comforting to me because I had a best friend named Fred who loved me really well and never hurt me.  But Tim hurt me, and Bruce hurt me and Danny betrayed me. And Betsy, well Betsy was just so perfect that I felt so small around her...and the names go on and on...yes, very good that God is "I am."  Be still and know that I am. 

Be still and know:
This one is so much harder.  Know what?  What do I need to know?  How much do I need to know?  Are there things I know that I shouldn't know?  Can't un-ring a bell.  I'm stuck with that knowing: violence, obsenity, hatred, betrayal, selfishness, pride...and so much more.  I know these things, which became so interesting to learn to know when so many people told me that I shouldn't do it...(I double dog dare you to...)  Be still and know...perhaps is know that, if we know that "God is God", and we know that "God is,"  maybe I can be still and know: that God is in charge, that God heals, that God forgives, that God is light, and the good shepherd, and the vine...I know...I am not alone...and there is always hope.  Perhaps this is what I am supposed to know...that I am loved and cherished and unique and needed....Be still and know...

Be still:
Can't hear or know much of anything when I am moving around.  When I am consumed with busyness and business. When I think I am much to important to remain idle, because just maybe, I'm thinking of myself as as idol...that my thoughts and words and actions are more important and need to be more important than your words or thoughts or actions, maybe I need to be still in order to know that I need to be humble...because You are God.  That all the things I think I need or know seem to fall away when I am still...hearing my breathing, which you taught my body to do, to see the flesh on my bones, wrinkled and bumpy and freckled...and sometimes bleeding...but I couldn't even feel pain without your having made me human...and I remember...in the stillness...that I can feel love because you made me to feel love.  Yes, I will "Be still" and know these things, about You, who are God.

Be:
When all is stripped away, when sickness comes, or death, or loss of someone we love, or a job, or a pet, when death is immanent and suffering seems to be without ceasing, if I can just be...let go of the questions, let go of the answers.  Live in the very moment and Be, still I feel You, I know You, I love You.  Be, when nothing else makes sense. Free will says I can stop it all: the pain, the sadness, the lonliness, the abandonment. I can stop it all in many, many ways:  but in the midst of our sufferings, God calls us to just "Be."  In the "Be-ing" we begin to know Him...Because we would not even "Be" without Him.  So for a moment, let us Be.  Let us rest in Be.  And in Be, we rest in Him.  In Be, in Him, we are able to "be still.' we are able to "Be still and know"  We are able to "Be still and know that He is"  and at last, "Be still and know that He is God." 

All that from reflecting on a book I read for the first time 16 years ago.  Nouwen. A genius. He knew. And he had the courage to write. So I write. Because love was given to me...through your hands...into my heart...His heart taking over mine, because He took over your heart...and you loved me, because He loved you first.  

Now that was fun to write. Yes, I didn't finish the first part...you editors, you...when I'm ready...I'll do it.  Pager went off.  Must attend to other things now.

Love, Cindy