Moving to Abilene

Quote from Nouwen's book The Wounded Healer:


The contemplative critic more than anything else will look for signs of hope and promise in the situation in which he finds himself. The contemplative critic has the sensibility to notice the small mustard seed and the trust to believe that "when it has grown it is the biggest shrub of all and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and shelter in its branches." He knows that if there is hope for a better world in the future the signs must be visible in the present, and he will never curse the now in favor of the later. He is not a naive optimist who expects his frustrated desires to be satisfied in the future, nor a bitter pessimist who keeps repeating that the past has taught him that there is nothing new under the sun. He is rather a man of hope who lives with the unshakable conviction that now he is seeing a dim reflection in a mirror, but that one day he will see the future face to face (I Cor. 13:12).



?So, in the face of being uprooted, where do we find signs of hope and promise in the present?

I am reminded of Brother Lawrence who found God in the mundane tasks of the kitchen. I guess it is through being aware of God in the earthy things. Even as I am writing, my 4 y/o son is discovering how to staple and is calling it "stample." Yes, there is joy in today. I will choose to feed my hope for a better tomorrow: one that is full of connections with good friends, versus feeding the bitter pessimist in me who feels overshadowed by the loss of daily connection with friends that I have left behind in Memphis, Tennessee.