Henri Nouwen traveled a great deal, at least during his life before living and serving in the Daybreak community in Toronto. In his book, The Road to Daybreak, he seemed to truly experience his travels as a "double-edged sword." They gave him much, but he worried about the cost to his prayer life. Yet, regardless of our undertakings, be they noble or ignoble, there is always a cost. This is the great contradiction that is ever present in our journeys.
With so much recovery work needed in the aftermath of hurricanes, earthquakes, and now fires in California, I am stunned to hear another mention of building a wall along our southern border. Is that really where we need to direct our resources? Towards the end of his book (copyright 1988) Nouwen asks, "Do we really need to belong to one country or one culture? In our world, where distances are becoming less each day, it seems important to become less and less dependent on one place, on language, one culture, or one style of life, but to experience oneself as a member of the human family, belonging to God and free to be wherever we are called to be. I even wonder if the ability to be in so many places so quickly and so often is not an invitation to grow deeper in the spirit and let our identity be more rooted in God and less in the place in which we happen to be." These are not frivolous questions. There is a profound difference between good stewardship and hoarding. One nurtures life; the other results in waste and decay.
"O You who hear all hearts,
hear my plea;
preserve my life when
fears beset me,
when the pangs of jealousy
pierce like a two-edged sword,
When doubts rise up and
leave me trembling;
As powerful as arrows they
strike the heart,
building armored walls that
keep Love at bay."
Psalm 64, abridged
Psalms for Praying,
Nan C. Merrill
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