Chosen, Blessed, Broken, Given

Hello faithful family, friends, and followers, welcome and thank you for your interest. We are doing well and especially enjoyed extra time with family and friends this past week.

Throughout our journey since the accident, I have shared on more than one occasion, the role of meaning making from the pain, suffering, and loss it brought into our lives. I noted that from one perspective, the senseless accident caused by a distracted young driver with bad brakes and no liability insurance, was the ultimate in cruel and evil absurdity. And while that is true, I also know that this journey is one of hope and perseverance and significant meaning on a personal, interpersonal/collective, and spiritual/eternal scale.

While I have drawn from many authors in an attempt to show the importance and value of meaning making in and from our trials - that it is not just a mind game but rather a necessary, meaningful, and healthy psychological practice and spiritual discipline - there are few authors I have turned to so frequently as Henri Nouwen. In my last post I shared some thoughts from Nouwen’s book, “Life of the Beloved,” in which he wove together scriptures highlighting our central identity as being “the Beloved” of God. But also in the book, he provides a visually descriptive metaphor relevant to all of us, but which especially touched my heart when I consider Joy’s challenging yet so often beautiful journey since the accident.

Having a verbal and visual metaphor at times is critical when living though the pains and challenges of life because it can give us an anchor point to hold on to and to reference whenever needed. In, “Life of the Beloved.” Nouwen uses imagery from the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Eucharist to illustrate a way of viewing life, its events, and our role in life, through that of the bread that is taken, blessed, broken, and given.

He begins by again establishing our status as the beloved when he writes…

Becoming the Beloved means letting the truth of our Belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say, or do. It entails a long and painful process of appropriation or, better, incarnation. As long as “being the Beloved” is little more than a beautiful thought or a lofty idea that hangs above my life to keep me from becoming depressed, nothing really changes. What is required is to become the Beloved in the commonplaces of my daily existence and, bit by bit, to close the gap that exists between what I know myself to be and the countless specific realities of everyday life. Becoming the Beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about, and doing from hour to hour.

Then Nouwen introduces the imagery of the bread from the Lord’s Supper…

To identify the movements of the Spirit in our lives, I have found it helpful to use four words: “taken,” “blessed,” “broken,” and “given…” These words summarize my life as a Christian because, as a Christian, I am called to become bread for the world: bread that is taken, blessed, broken, and given. Most importantly, however, they summarize my life as a human being because in every moment of my life somewhere, somehow the taking, the blessing, the breaking, and the giving are happening.

Taken or chosen…

I do believe deeply that, in order to live a spiritual life, we have to claim for ourselves that we are “taken” or “chosen…” Long before any human being saw us, we are seen by God’s loving eyes. Long before anyone heard us cry or laugh, we are heard by our God who is all ears for us. Long before any person spoke to us in this world, we are spoken to by the voice of eternal love. Our preciousness, uniqueness, and individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time—our brief chronological existence—but by the One who has chosen us with an everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through all eternity… When love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one, and it chooses without making anyone else feel excluded.

Blessed…

In Latin, to bless is benedicere. The word “benediction” that is used in many churches means literally: speaking (dictio) well (bene) or saying good things of someone. That speaks to me… The blessings that we give to each other are expressions of the blessing that rests on us from all eternity. It is the deepest affirmation of our true self. It is not enough to be chosen. We also need an ongoing blessing that allows us to hear in an ever-new way that we belong to a loving God who will never leave us alone, but will remind us always that we are guided by love on every step of our lives.

Broken…

The deep truth is that our human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, but can become, instead, the means to it. The great secret of the spiritual life, the life of the Beloved Sons and Daughters of God, is that everything we live, be it gladness or sadness, joy or pain, health or illness, can all be part of the journey toward the full realization of our humanity… The great spiritual call of the Beloved Children of God is to pull their brokenness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing… And so the great task becomes that of allowing the blessing to touch us in our brokenness. Then our brokenness will gradually come to be seen as an opening toward the full acceptance of ourselves as the Beloved.

Given…

We are chosen, blessed, and broken so as to be given. The fourth aspect of the life of the Beloved is to be given. For me, personally, this means that it is only as people who are given that we can fully understand our being chosen, blessed, and broken. In the giving it becomes clear that we are chosen, blessed, and broken not simply for our own sakes, but so that all we live finds its final significance in its being lived for others…It is sad to see that, in our highly competitive and greedy world, we have lost touch with the joy of giving. We often live as if our happiness depended on having. But I don’t know anyone who is really happy because of what he or she has. True joy, happiness, and inner peace come from the giving of ourselves to others. A happy life is a life for others. That truth, however, is usually discovered when we are confronted with our brokenness.

One of Joy’s favorite pieces of jewelry is a necklace pendant given her by our dear friend Susan Roland. It is a shard of broken glass from the streets of Chicago which has been crafted into a sparkling thing of beauty, clearly demonstrating how something so broken can be made to shine. It has been an inspiring metaphor for Joy throughout her recovery and in her faithful, joyful, service to others.

I hope that these words of Henri Nouwen can be yet another meaning making tool that will allow you to embrace the challenges that come to all of us, recognizing that we are chosen, blessed, and broken, but not for loss, but as a treasured gift to be given to others.