From Restless to Restful

Excerpts from Henri Nouwen's Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life

Reading about The First Movement: From Loneliness to Solitude

"No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. And by burdening others with these divine expectations, of which we ourselves are only partially aware, we might inhibit the expression of free friendship and love and evoke instead feelings of inadequacy and weakness. Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other. They ask for gentle fearless space in which we can move to and from each other. As long as our loneliness brings us together with the hope that together we will no longer be alone, we castigate each other with our unfulfilled and unrealistic desires for oneness, inner tranquility and the uninterrupted experience of community.

"It is sad to see how sometimes people suffering from loneliness, often deepened by the lack of affection in their intimate family circle, search for a final solution for their pains and look at a new friend, a new lover, or a new community with Messianic expectations." (30)

"It is easy to see how many marraiges are suffering from this illusion. Often they are started with the hope of a union that can dispel all painful feelings of 'not belonging'..." (33)

"When we do not protect with great care our own inner mystery, we will never be able to form community." (31)

"It is our vocation to prevent the harmful exposure of our inner sanctuary, not only for our own protection but also as a service to our fellow human beings with whom we want to enter into a creative communion." (32)

"The movement from loneliness to solitude... is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit." (34)

Shucks, this is good stuff. Nouwen's words offer so much clarity to my inarticulate attempts to voice what God has been teaching me.

I especially love the last line about restless senses. How I've been plagued my entire life with the ill of restlessness. How we all are- and how so much of what we yearn for is relief from that very feeling. How so much of what composes our day-to-day lives serves as a distraction from it. Even things as divinely purposed as community and play and study-we have twisted these into temporary escapes from our loneliness, and misplaced ends in our pursuit of wholeness.

Just as peace is what we seek in times of unrest, solitude is what heals our restlessness. May we all begin to seek rest-giving solitude with our Creator, the only One with whom we can joyfully share our inner mystery. And only when we do this, when we face our deepest loneliness and turn to the only One who can fix it, will we ever be free of our own miserable restlessness.

Lord help me find rest

bring me to a place of solitude

What will it take? confession- my brokenness, loneliness, emptiness... I am void and thirsty for You. removal of distractions- my business and fruitless activity, my idols and idleness... Come fill, come heal, come purpose. Teach me what it means to be always yet never alone.