Nouwen on the hidden resurrection

# Ryan Hart:
December 2nd, 2009 @ 10:48 pm

“…as we grow more deeply into the spiritual life - the life in communion with our risen Lord - we gradually get in touch with our desire to move through the gate of death…”

Henri Nouwen was, when he wrote this, already in deep communion with the risen Lord, a communion of spirit and also of spiritual embodiment.
# Ryan Hart:
November 29th, 2009 @ 12:08 pm

A year before writing Bread for the Journey, Nouwen expressed similar thoughts about death. On one hand death is final. On the other hand, “…nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste…” Then he adds something he does not say exactly the same way now. He adds, “not even our mortal bodies [will not go to waste].” Our Greatest Gift p. 109

In Our Greatest Gift, Nouwen says, “…I want to make Paul’s words my own” but then he expresses a hesitancy: “my hesitation in writing about this is connected with my conviction that the resurrection of Jesus is a hidden event.”

I think that whenever Nouwen talks about resurrection, that of Jesus or of ours, he is talking about something hidden. So his problem, in other words is how to talk about something real and bodily but also hidden.

In Bread, what is new is his attempt to get at resolving that problem with Paul’s metaphor of the seed. The mortal body is a seed that must die for the spiritual body to rise. That takes us into the future and the unknown. But it is also here and now in that it is what happens in the baptismal mystery and the spiritual body becomes present in a hidden way, and it is our mission to express that mystery with our visible, mortal bodies.
# Ryan Hart:
November 28th, 2009 @ 10:46 am

It was on this day in 1995 — 14 years ago — that Nouwen sat down at his desk to continue writing in his daybook and he did not know where to go. It was the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and Nouwen was writing in a little apartment attached to the home of his friend’s Jonas and Margaret Watertown. He wrote about that day in Sabbatical Joureny: “Last night I got stuck in my writing…. not knowing how to articulate that, on one hand, our bodies will return to “dust” while, on the other hand, nothing we have lived in the body will go to waste.” What helped him get un-stuck was reading 1 Cor 15:35:38 — the text we see in todays thought. Nouwen wrote: This answer really woke me up! It was as if I heard if for the very first time. Our life is a seed that has to die to be dressed with immortality! Things suddenly came together and started to make sense, spiritual sense.”

Much of what we read in Bread for the Journey drawn from teachings he has offered in other books. It seems that his reflections on the relationship between the body that goes to dust and the body that gets dressed with immortality are particularly fresh teachings for Nouwen.

I see Nouwen as having been dressed in immortality even when he was alive. His flesh and blood body was limited in time and space. He could only visit one friend at a time. But his immortal body was free from the constraints of time and space — it is that body that visited my home, and it is after sensing that presence that I witnessed the mystery first hand: there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. First comes the natural, then the spiritual. And here is the hidden mystery Paul speaks about: “we will not all die (before the second coming), but we will all be changed.”

Nouwen knew that the second coming and the resurrection are here and now for those with eyes to see, and he lived his life as he did in the hope of helping many people to see.
# Ralph Bormet:
November 25th, 2009 @ 9:24 pm

To All Readers:
Have a Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!
# Ryan Hart:
November 24th, 2009 @ 10:19 pm

What does Nowen mean when he says “…nothing we are living now in our body will go to waste.”

What about our sins? I sometimes think of my bad deeds as “a waste.” My slothful times as “a waste.” My missed moments as “a waste.” But Nowen seems to question that.

One angle is to say in the present, here and now, that all of my life experiences, past, and future, and present, even those less than exemplary, can and will somehow be redeemed, and made part of God’s story of blessing.
# Ryan Hart:
November 12th, 2009 @ 9:05 am

Belonging to the communion of saints means being connected with all people transformed by the Spirit of Jesus. This connection is deep and intimate. Those who have lived as brothers and sisters of Jesus continue to live within us, even though they have died, just as Jesus continues to live within us, even though he has died…. They are the source of our constant transformation. Yes, we carry them in our bodies and thus keep them alive… - Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, November 12th.

For me, I believe, and have evidence that Henri Nouwen was a source, an author, an authority behind an intimate transformative experience. It was very sudden, but lasting in its impact. I think I do carry Henri in my body now, but not as some weird imposition; rather, Henri, as a saint, has helped me to carry my own body in deeper contact with our shared source in God. Inasmuch as I walk in the resurrection of Jesus and the saints, I am remembering saint Henri well. Of course there are times when I feel depressed, I have that tendency, and the written words of Henri Nouwen helps me to move through those times knowing that it is part of being human.
# Ralph Bormet:
November 11th, 2009 @ 6:57 am

Ryan: Why not share your hope with your sister? Not in a sanctimonious way, but in a faith-filled prayer way.
# Ryan Hart:
November 9th, 2009 @ 8:44 pm

“…saintliness is not just for those who lived long and hardworking lives. These children, and many who died young, are as much witnesses to Jesus as those who accomplished heroic deeds.” - Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey (November 9)

My sister in law was called upon by a neighbor when a child died in his sleep. She tried CPR, but the child was already dead. It horrified her, and she was easily brought to tears for weeks. Maybe it would help her to think of that child now as a saint, guiding her on the way. Maybe she already does.