Choose Life

Lenten Reading for Tuesday, February 26, 2013:

"Choose life so that you and your descendants may live"...Deuteronomy 30:19
Henri J. M. Nouwen writes, "Life is always small.  It is always vulnerable.  It never shouts or screams.  It always needs protection and guidance.  Saying "yes" to it means being willing to look at the small life that seeks to be born in your heart, in your body, in your mind, among people...Because life is very small, you can never see it happening.  Have you ever seen a tree actually grow?  Can you see a child grow?  Growth is too gentle, too tender.  Life is basically hidden.  It is small and begs for constant care and protection.  If you are committed to always saying "yes" to life, you are going to have to become a person who chooses it when it is hidden."  (from Christ Our Hope: Daily Lenten Devotions by Creative Communications for the Parish)

Personal Reflection:
The text from Deuteronomy and Nouwen's reflections remind me of my hospital chaplaincy experience.  My chaplain advisor, an ordained Disciples of Christ minister, seemed fearless in her encounters with patients and families; she seemed acquainted with suffering and healing; she administered humor and hope like medicine; compassion hung about her neck like a stethoscope. I interviewed her and discovered that this text in Deuteronomy was her go to word of God for coping and decision making, for encountering people in their time of greatest vulnerability.  God sets before us life and death, and we get to choose.  God wants us to choose life.  Nouwen bears witness to the fragility of the choice made and the holy mystery of the choice.  God did not set before us "easy" and "difficult."   (submitted by Ashley Grant)  




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