A little bit of Henri J.M. Nouwen
Several weeks ago I started to read some books from Henri J.M. Nouwen. All that I read was really great, but now I would like to share some of his thoughts from the book “Clowning in Rome” (Image Books 1979, p. 86ff). The last chapter had the title “Contemplation and Ministry” and was about the relationship between these two parts. For me while being here in Tanzania these two sides of one medal became very important. The thoughts of Henri J.M. Nouwen helped me to get a deeper understanding of what it means to be here and maybe it will be also helpful to some of the blog-readers.
“There once was a sculptor working hard with his hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little boy who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left and right. He had no idea what was happening. But when the boy returned to the studio a few weeks later, he saw to his great surprise a large, powerful lion sitting in the place where the marble had stood. With great excitement the boy ran to the sculptor and said, "Sir, tell me, how did you know there was a lion in the marble?"
The art of sculpture is, first of all, the art of seeing. In one block of marble, Michelangelo saw a loving mother carrying her dead son on her lap; in another, he saw a self-confident David ready to hurl his stone at the approaching Goliath; and in a third, he saw an irate Moses at the point of rising in anger from his seat. Visual art is indeed the art of seeing, and discipline is the way to make visible what has been seen. Thus the skillful artist is a liberator who frees from their bondage the figures that have been hidden for billions of years inside the marble, unable to reveal their true identity.
The image of the sculptor offers us a beautiful illustration of the relationship between contemplation and ministry. To contemplate is to see, and to minister is to make visible; the contemplative life is a life with a vision, and the life of ministry is a life in which this vision is revealed to others.”
Henri J.M. Nouwen points out that to be able to see beyond the visible world we have to move from opaqueness to transparency. He shows this on three examples. I would like to draw my attention to one of them. It is the movement in the relationship with people (the other two are with nature and time).
“One of our greatest temptations is to relate to people as interesting characters, as individuals who strike us as worthy of special attention because of their special qualities. We are always intrigued by interesting characters, whether they are film stars or criminals, sports heroes or killers, Nobel Prize winners or perverts. Sometimes, our attention is instinctively drawn to these unusual individuals. We want to meet them, shake their hands, get their autograph, or just gaze at them. Magazines such as People make millions of dollars catering to human curiosity about humans, and the front pages of most newspapers give less and less news and more and more reports about new records in human irregularities, whether they lead to praise or to blame. (…)
As long as people are little more than interesting characters to us, they remain opaque. We can be quite sure that no one who is approached as an interesting character is going to reveal to us his or her secret. On the contrary, characterization is often so narrowing and limiting that it makes people close themselves and hide. Especially in the field of the helping professions, the temptation to label people with easy characterizations is great, since it gives us the illusion of understanding. Not only psychiatric labels such as "neurotic," "psychopathic," or "schizophrenic," but also religious labels such as "unbeliever," "pagan," "sinner," "progressive," "conservative," "liberal," and "orthodox" can give us a false sense of understanding that reveals more about our insecurities than about the real nature of our neighbors.
Our great task is to prevent our fears from boxing our fellow human beings into characterizations and to see them as persons. The word "person" comes from per-sonare, which means "sounding through." Our vocation in life is to be and increasingly become persons who "sound through" to each other a greater reality than we ourselves fully know. As persons we sound through a love greater than we ourselves can grasp, a truth deeper than we ourselves can articulate, and a beauty richer than we ourselves can contain. As persons we are called to be transparent to each other, to point far beyond our character to him who has given us his love, truth, and beauty.
When someone says to you, "I love you," or "I am deeply moved by you," or "I am grateful to you," you easily become defensive and wonder what is so special about you. You say or think "Aren't there many other people who are much more lovable or muck more intelligent than I am?" But then you have forgotten that you are a person who sounds through to others something much greater and deeper than you yourself can hear.
Contemplation as seeing what is really there, has a very significant meaning in the context of interpersonal relationships. Although we cannot hear ourselves sounding through, we are nevertheless sounding through to each other. This implies that our real gifts only become known to us when they are recognized and affirmed by those who receive them.
Here we can begin to see the intimate connection between contemplation and ministry. Contemplation enables us to see the gifts in those to whom we minister, and ministry is first of all the reception and affirmation of what we hear sounding through them so that they themselves may come to a recognition of their own giftedness. What more beautiful ministry is there than the ministry through which we help others to become aware of the love, truth, and beauty they reveal to us? Ours is a time in which many people doubt their self-worth and are often on the verge of a self-condemnation that can lead to suicide. We can indeed save lives by discovering in those in need the gifts that ask to be shared.
The little boy's question to the sculptor is a very real question, perhaps the most important question of all: "Sir, tell me, how did you know that there was a lion in the mar¬ble?" How do we know that God can become visible through the veil of nature? How do we come to the realization that all of our time can become an occasion for a change of heart? How do we know that people sound through more than they themselves can hear? It is certainly not obvious. For most people, the world is very opaque. They see nothing in the marble but a thick, impenetrable block of stone. Aren't we romantics, after all, people who are unwilling to see the hard facts of life and who simply see what we want to see?
We touch here the central question of our spiritual life and our ministry. Is there a lion in the marble? Is there a God in this world? Or is our spiritual life nothing more than wishful thinking and our ministry nothing other than the creation of a collective illusion in which everyone sees God but no one sees the bitter reality of our daily existence? Do we see a lion in the marble and yet not see that it really blocks our way?
There is an answer to the boy's question, an answer that irritates many and makes sense to only a few. The answer is, "I knew there was a lion in the marble because before I saw the lion in the marble I saw him in my own heart. The secret is that it was the lion in my heart who recognized the lion in the marble."
The practice of contemplative prayer is the discipline by which we begin to see God in our heart. It is a careful attentiveness to him who dwells in the center of our being such that through the recognition of his presence we allow him to take possession of all our senses. Through the discipline of prayer we awaken ourselves to the God in us and let him enter into our heartbeat and our breathing, into our thoughts and emotions, our hearing, seeing, touching, and tasting. It is by being awake to this God in us that we can see him in the world around us. The great mystery of the contemplative life is not that we see God in the world, but that God within us recognizes God in the world."
“There once was a sculptor working hard with his hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little boy who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left and right. He had no idea what was happening. But when the boy returned to the studio a few weeks later, he saw to his great surprise a large, powerful lion sitting in the place where the marble had stood. With great excitement the boy ran to the sculptor and said, "Sir, tell me, how did you know there was a lion in the marble?"
The art of sculpture is, first of all, the art of seeing. In one block of marble, Michelangelo saw a loving mother carrying her dead son on her lap; in another, he saw a self-confident David ready to hurl his stone at the approaching Goliath; and in a third, he saw an irate Moses at the point of rising in anger from his seat. Visual art is indeed the art of seeing, and discipline is the way to make visible what has been seen. Thus the skillful artist is a liberator who frees from their bondage the figures that have been hidden for billions of years inside the marble, unable to reveal their true identity.
The image of the sculptor offers us a beautiful illustration of the relationship between contemplation and ministry. To contemplate is to see, and to minister is to make visible; the contemplative life is a life with a vision, and the life of ministry is a life in which this vision is revealed to others.”
Henri J.M. Nouwen points out that to be able to see beyond the visible world we have to move from opaqueness to transparency. He shows this on three examples. I would like to draw my attention to one of them. It is the movement in the relationship with people (the other two are with nature and time).
“One of our greatest temptations is to relate to people as interesting characters, as individuals who strike us as worthy of special attention because of their special qualities. We are always intrigued by interesting characters, whether they are film stars or criminals, sports heroes or killers, Nobel Prize winners or perverts. Sometimes, our attention is instinctively drawn to these unusual individuals. We want to meet them, shake their hands, get their autograph, or just gaze at them. Magazines such as People make millions of dollars catering to human curiosity about humans, and the front pages of most newspapers give less and less news and more and more reports about new records in human irregularities, whether they lead to praise or to blame. (…)
As long as people are little more than interesting characters to us, they remain opaque. We can be quite sure that no one who is approached as an interesting character is going to reveal to us his or her secret. On the contrary, characterization is often so narrowing and limiting that it makes people close themselves and hide. Especially in the field of the helping professions, the temptation to label people with easy characterizations is great, since it gives us the illusion of understanding. Not only psychiatric labels such as "neurotic," "psychopathic," or "schizophrenic," but also religious labels such as "unbeliever," "pagan," "sinner," "progressive," "conservative," "liberal," and "orthodox" can give us a false sense of understanding that reveals more about our insecurities than about the real nature of our neighbors.
Our great task is to prevent our fears from boxing our fellow human beings into characterizations and to see them as persons. The word "person" comes from per-sonare, which means "sounding through." Our vocation in life is to be and increasingly become persons who "sound through" to each other a greater reality than we ourselves fully know. As persons we sound through a love greater than we ourselves can grasp, a truth deeper than we ourselves can articulate, and a beauty richer than we ourselves can contain. As persons we are called to be transparent to each other, to point far beyond our character to him who has given us his love, truth, and beauty.
When someone says to you, "I love you," or "I am deeply moved by you," or "I am grateful to you," you easily become defensive and wonder what is so special about you. You say or think "Aren't there many other people who are much more lovable or muck more intelligent than I am?" But then you have forgotten that you are a person who sounds through to others something much greater and deeper than you yourself can hear.
Contemplation as seeing what is really there, has a very significant meaning in the context of interpersonal relationships. Although we cannot hear ourselves sounding through, we are nevertheless sounding through to each other. This implies that our real gifts only become known to us when they are recognized and affirmed by those who receive them.
Here we can begin to see the intimate connection between contemplation and ministry. Contemplation enables us to see the gifts in those to whom we minister, and ministry is first of all the reception and affirmation of what we hear sounding through them so that they themselves may come to a recognition of their own giftedness. What more beautiful ministry is there than the ministry through which we help others to become aware of the love, truth, and beauty they reveal to us? Ours is a time in which many people doubt their self-worth and are often on the verge of a self-condemnation that can lead to suicide. We can indeed save lives by discovering in those in need the gifts that ask to be shared.
The little boy's question to the sculptor is a very real question, perhaps the most important question of all: "Sir, tell me, how did you know that there was a lion in the mar¬ble?" How do we know that God can become visible through the veil of nature? How do we come to the realization that all of our time can become an occasion for a change of heart? How do we know that people sound through more than they themselves can hear? It is certainly not obvious. For most people, the world is very opaque. They see nothing in the marble but a thick, impenetrable block of stone. Aren't we romantics, after all, people who are unwilling to see the hard facts of life and who simply see what we want to see?
We touch here the central question of our spiritual life and our ministry. Is there a lion in the marble? Is there a God in this world? Or is our spiritual life nothing more than wishful thinking and our ministry nothing other than the creation of a collective illusion in which everyone sees God but no one sees the bitter reality of our daily existence? Do we see a lion in the marble and yet not see that it really blocks our way?
There is an answer to the boy's question, an answer that irritates many and makes sense to only a few. The answer is, "I knew there was a lion in the marble because before I saw the lion in the marble I saw him in my own heart. The secret is that it was the lion in my heart who recognized the lion in the marble."
The practice of contemplative prayer is the discipline by which we begin to see God in our heart. It is a careful attentiveness to him who dwells in the center of our being such that through the recognition of his presence we allow him to take possession of all our senses. Through the discipline of prayer we awaken ourselves to the God in us and let him enter into our heartbeat and our breathing, into our thoughts and emotions, our hearing, seeing, touching, and tasting. It is by being awake to this God in us that we can see him in the world around us. The great mystery of the contemplative life is not that we see God in the world, but that God within us recognizes God in the world."
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