"...these broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevent self - the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things - and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to recieve and give love regardless of any accomplishments."
These are the words of Henri Nouwen, who chose to leave his tenured position teaching at Harvard to work with L'Arche, a community for mentally handicapped adults. He talks about being faced with his "naked self", unable to rest on his reputation, the books he's published, the knowlege he had to impress them or create "relationships"....the things that made him "relevent" (but didn't satisfy his heart) became completely irrelevent there.
I struggle to be relevent, to prove I have something to offer - we all do, I think. Our inner shelf of personal trophies is full of our deeds, not our attitudes or be-ing's. Yet, the harder I try to prove my worth, the less sure I am of it. It's an odd paradox. I love the idea of "reclaiming my unadorned self" - being free to love and be loved for no reason at all. That really sounds like freedom to me, don't you think?
5 comments:
yes Rae ..in a sense you are an adorned person, which is fine, but it is having an unadorned SELF ... that you are free to express who you are, take risks, not be full of self doubt ...the doubts are really a search for adornments... I love you, adorned or otherwise. Me
really liked this post...
What's the name of that book? It seems like it would be right down my alley since I work with the Developmentally Disabled Population!
i'd love to say i can't empathise with this post, but god would stike me down for lying.but on the other had there is a great and exciting jopurney in all of that, that i do love most days. i do love being an adored person, but i love it more when people celebrate me for the unadorned me.
hello, friends. think metaphorically for a minute here... he isnt' talking about being actually adorned like with a bedazzler...but adorned with the trappings of success... silly people. :)
rae
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