EL’s Dribble

It’s funny [or disturbing] how much gets revealed when you spend bulk time with your family. I’m in Taiwan spending a week with my dad – taking care of family business, helping him sort through my grandparents things. Basically spending some father and son time. There have been few moments of “I’ll remember this for a lifetime”… but it’s been more of a journey in seeing the baggage my family carries around with them… and most certainly my own baggage that I still deal with.

I’ve been reading Henri Nouwen again. That guy reads me like a book [ironically as I’m reading his]. This time it’s The Return of the Prodigal Son which is his exposition of the Luke 15 passage and a personal journal of his encounter with Rembrandt’s painting of which he titled the book after.

I’m not even half way done and the thing is killing me; and I’m only up to where he talks about the rebellious younger son. He uses the analogy of the younger son “leaving home” as a parallel of when we doubt that God’s love is unconditional or that in him we are fully alive and secure. And when we doubt and begin looking in other places as if we don’t already have a home… that’s leaving home.

It can manifest in being at the mercy of people’s opinions, posturing for attention or respect, being paralyzed by fear… when we leave to find what we already have in God… we’re leaving home.

Here’s some Nouwen:

“…when I forget that voice of the first unconditional love, then these innocent suggestions can easily start dominating my life and pull me into the ‘distant country.’ It is not very hard for me to know when this is happening… a little criticism makes me angry and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It’s takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down… I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.”

I notice when I’m around my family for a substantial period of time – this time my dad and my uncle – I see their insecurities, their posturing, their paralysis, their judgmentalism… and then I realize that it’s all in me. That’s frightening. Really frightening.

I see my own insecurities: I see how I try to say things that shade towards my competence, I see how I get scared to say the wrong things so I retreat into silence, I see how I throw back the judgment I think I’m getting with more judgment.

It’s born from thoughts in my mind that end with “…is not good enough.” My Chinese is not good enough, my career is not good enough, my “required public behavior” is not good enough, etc. When I allow these thoughts to stay too long, I’m forced to act out out on them [as if they were true]… and I realize that I’ve ventured into that “distant country”… looking for something that can never be found there.

It highlights even more the need to stay close to home [Jesus that is... not San Jose, haha]… where I don’t need to validate my worth, daydream of proving everyone wrong, wait for moments to highlight my brilliance. Home is where I’m received with nothing to prove and no explanation needed. It’s only here that I’m actually free to express myself without shading, say things without fear of getting it wrong and return judgment with mercy and humility.

It’s being out of my regular environment and around the people that push my buttons that I see the full breadth of my flawed-ness, the ball of anger, fear, pride, restlessness, sensitivity that I am [at times]. But it underscores my need to stay close to home. Rest my head on the chest of my Father, receive his embrace and enjoy being his son.

So my time here is not all “hyper-emo”… have had good dumplings, spending quality time with pops and will get to see some friends. Hopefully some more reflection on Nouwen soon…

I’m re-reading The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen and I’m reminded again why he’s my favorite author, next to Jose Canseco. He communicates the complex nuances of leadership and pastoral sensitivity in such simple and profound ways. I remember first reading it – I didn’t get it. But I think I get it now… or at least better. A quote to ponder:

“The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. Our lives are filled with examples which tell us that leadership asks for understanding and that understanding requires sharing. So long as we define leadership in terms of preventing or establishing precedents, or in terms of being responsible for some kind of abstract ‘general good,’ we have forgotten that no God can save us except a suffering God, and that no man can lead his people except the man who is crushed by his sins.” [pg. 72]