Each
day, we will post a short article by one of Darton, Longman and Todd’s amazing
authors, offering a personal reflection on our current situation in life.
Sometimes this will be written with reference to one of their books, and
sometimes about how they are living in response to the coronavirus, COVID-19 and
our current world situation. We hope it will give you a taste of the depth and
diversity of DLT’s list – books for heart, mind and soul that aim to meet the
needs and interests of all.
Today’s
post is by Carolyn Whitney-Brown, and makes reference to three books by Henri
Nouwen and published by DLT: Clowning
in Rome, Finding
My Way Home and Here and
Now.
I
will try to explain how the emergency situation of the world in which we live
can open us to a new understanding of the indispensability of solitude in the
life of the Christian community … Solitude, then, is not private time in
contrast to time together, nor a time to restore our tired minds. Solitude is
very different from a time-out from community life. Solitude is the ground from
which community grows. (Henri Nouwen,
Clowning in Rome)
A couple of years ago,
I was asked to write a book using Henri Nouwen’s unpublished writings about the
flying trapeze. To be honest, I was unsure. I had lived at L’Arche Daybreak
with my husband and children from 1990-97, so I knew Henri well and remembered
many conversations about his fascination with a travelling circus, but the
trapeze imagery had never grabbed me. I don’t like heights.
Then on Palm Sunday
2018, also known as Passion Sunday, I suddenly glimpsed something of what had
seized Henri’s imagination. In our church on that Sunday, we read through the
entire gospel story of Jesus’ Passion, from the entry into Jerusalem through to
the crucifixion. We heard a story of excitement, celebration, friendship, eating,
betrayal, injustice, denial, suffering, and death. Then there was a moment when
we stood and gripped our neighbours’ hands to pray the Lord’s Prayer. And
that’s when I felt the power, the momentum of it. Every year we stand together
hand-in-hand, take a deep breath, and launch ourselves towards Holy Thursday,
Good Friday and Easter. It’s like the trapeze. We were together choosing to
trust, to fly towards whatever is ahead, co-creators of a great and inspiring
act.
To
live in the present, we must believe deeply that what is most important is the
here and the now. (Henri Nouwen, Here and Now)
I start with this image
of a flying trapeze troupe, because the ways in which we live out God’s call in
the world requires the full participation of each one of us – whether that is a
circus, social justice, peace-making, prayer circles, building community. We do
it together. We do it for others. The flyer risks and trusts the catcher. The
catcher takes responsibility for the flyer. The act is not hierarchical. It is
teamwork, communing, community, all in motion. The image of the trapeze is
about moving through time and space together.
But here we are in
2020, and not only can we not hold hands, but to care for each other we must
not gather for Holy Week. It is not obvious how we will find the momentum to
fly and to catch each other in this disrupted time, in our separate spaces.
Especially
in periods of crises, conflicts, and strong emotional tensions, silence can not
only offer healing but also show new ways for our life together… solitude is
the place where God reveals himself as God-with-us … Solitude is not a
solution. It is a direction. (Henri Nouwen, Clowning in Rome)
This Passion Sunday, we
will each launch ourselves into Holy Week alone or with the very small circle
of people with whom we live. But here is a new thought: perhaps the power of
the trapeze is not in touching, but in those moments when touch is impossible.
The flyer lets go of everything, even of the trapeze. Reaching out, for a time
the flyer touches nothing. Some of the most artistic moments are when the
trapeze artists fly past each other in complex patterns, without touching.
The
spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment,
expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our
own imagination or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward
life in a world preoccupied with control. (Henri Nouwen, Finding My Way Home)
And so perhaps these
days and weeks are like that, challenging us to let go and trust, to fly and
let others fly, knowing we cannot always catch each other now.
…
when we pray, we will increasingly experience ourselves as part of a human
family … we often wonder what we can do for others, especially for those in
great need. It is not a sign of powerlessness when we say; ‘We must pray for
one another’. (Henri Nouwen, Here
and Now)
Carolyn Whitney-Brown,
PhD, wrote the Introduction to DLT’s edition of Henri Nouwen’s Road to Daybreak. She is still working
on Nouwen’s unpublished trapeze book, tentatively titled All of Life in Nine Minutes.
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