Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Connected Through Forgiveness

Henri Nouwen was one of the more remarkable theologians of the late-20th Century. Most famous for his seminal work, The Wounded Healer,

[a]fter nearly two decades of teaching at the Menninger Foundation Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and at the University of Notre Dame, Yale University and Harvard University, he went to work with mentally challenged people at the L'Arche community of Daybreak in Toronto, Canada. (Wikipedia)
His understanding of spirituality and life has impacted over a generation of pilgrims into faith and relationships within faith. Nouwen is one of my heroes, mentors on paper, and a light to greater understanding. It does not surprise me that he has this to say about forgiveness:
“Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen
Without forgiveness, love may not be possible. Without love, forgiveness may not be possible. The connections among the daily themes of Attention and Interpretation Therapy begin to fall into place. They are not separate compartments. (What in life is?) They are pieces of a greater whole, a greater way of living than we are used to experiencing.'

We humans are truly the fellowship of the weak. But we at least have the possibility of each other.

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