Joy and Sorrow

Nouwen went all Zen this morning, and I'm struggling with putting it together with Paul's hopefulness in Romans 8. The problem is that Nouwen is right in the thick of life, of his humanity. He speaks to our sorrow as connected to our joys; one can not have one without the other. I think what he really was getting at was that sorrow is a part of life, and we can not live in a way that tries to avoid it because we then also avoid joy. It is about living passionately even though it opens us up to sadness. You can't care deeply about something without feeling its loss. By the same token, in our deepest sorrow, joy seems to find a way of bringing us back.

In contrast to Nouwen's reality, Paul's head was pointed to Heaven. He talked about the hope Christians have in Jesus to plead our case and lead us to an eternity with God. I suppose that in some ways he, too, was talking about the connection between joy and sorrow. In our deepest sorrows Christ's hope is there to bring us back. For Paul, life is full of suffering, but our faith in Christ gives us joy in redemption and reconciliation with God.

It's funny how you can read these two diverse texts, and feel they were written just for you. I think that one of the areas in which I need to grow both as a human and as a Christian is my ability to live honestly and passionately. Ever since high school, I have held back. I did this for many reasons, but the main one is that I didn't like to feel as if I was wrong or if I cared about losing something. Being the object of ridicule and abuse in middle school taught me that the one defense against stronger people was to pretend you just didn't care. Eventually they got bored and mostly left you alone. By the time I got through high school, I had added the idea that passion made one look really stupid, especially when the person you were passionate about wasn't really that into you. It took me a long time to get passed that, especially in my personal relationships. It's still true, though, in many aspects of my life. It's easier to be nonchalant and uninspired than to take the chance on being wrong or disappointed in something. I need to grow here, especially in my spiritual life because Jesus and God expect you to give yourself to them, to give your heart to them. That requires passion and suffering and joy.