Life is ‘a little while’, a short moment of waiting. It is to wait full of expectation. The knowledge that God will indeed fulfill the promise to renew everything, and will offer us a new heaven and a new earth, makes the waiting exciting. We can already see the beginning of the fulfillment. Nature speaks of it every spring; people speak of it whenever they smile; the sun, the moon, and the stars speak of it when they offer us light and beauty; and all of history speaks of it when amidst all devastation and chaos, men and women arise who reveal the hope that lives within them. What is my main task during my ‘little while’? I want to point to the sings of the Kingdom to come, to speak about the first rays of the day of God. I do not want to complain about this passing world but to focus on the eternal that lights up in the midst of the temporal. I yearn to create space where it can be seen and celebrated. ~ Henri Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey
by way of an update…
I look around and I realize that I have all the fixings to get 4-5 more posts done on my series about humor. But, something is amiss. I am humorless indeed. It’s an irony not wasted on me and its own sort of humor.
I suppose when I was trying to understand humor in the first place it was to save myself from this point. But I got here anyway.
So now, strangely, I feel like I’m on a sabbatical.
I’m placed in it but didn’t choose it. The will to write feels gone, even though seeds are in my hand.
Today, I spent the day at the Jesuit Center and found a book on Henri Nouwen in the library and it piqued my interest in him once again.
I don’t want to have this tortured part of me that gets befuddled most Autumns and Winters but there you have it, anyhow.
Until I get my gumption back, I’ll post the occasional pieces and bits from the scratching in the dust that I’m doing now in this arid place of the soul.