April 10, 2025 • 48 mins
Dr. Rebecca Laird takes us on a journey through spiritual formation, direction, and the enduring legacy of Henri Nouwen in this deeply personal conversation. Drawing from her years as Dean of the School of Theology and Christian Ministry at Point Loma Nazarene University, alongside decades in pastoral ministry and spiritual direction, Dr. Laird illuminates the pathways to a more meaningful spiritual life.
"Spirituality is usually about lived theology," she explains, distinguishing between abstract theological concepts and the concrete reality of how faith manifests in our daily existence. Through practices like the Prayer of Examen – taking time to notice where we experienced connection and disconnection throughout our day – we begin to recognize patterns and make intentional choices that invite greater meaning into our lives.
The conversation explores Henri Nouwen's remarkable journey from academic prominence at Yale and Harvard to finding his true home at L'Arche, a community centered around people with disabilities. Dr. Laird shares personal memories of Nouwen, revealing how his ability to articulate "the contours of the heart" created profound connections with readers from vastly different backgrounds through his unique pastoral writing style.
At the core of spiritual direction is the practice of accompaniment – walking alongside another person while helping them recognize what God might be doing that they're too close to see themselves. This requires genuine curiosity about people and attention to the "persistent questions" we all wrestle with: Who am I? Where do I belong? How can I serve? What is prayer?
For those seeking a more meaningful spiritual path, Dr. Laird emphasizes three essential disciplines: engagement with community, connection to scripture, and practices of the heart. "If you're seeking discernment but you're not doing those things," she cautions, "it's like saying you want to get stronger but have an aversion to lifting weights."
The conversation concludes with powerful reflections on building authentic community across socioeconomic divisions, moving beyond one-way service relationships toward mutual growth and dignity – a journey that begins when people discover they have meaningful gifts to share, regardless of their circumstances.
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Episode Transcript
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Chris Nafis (00:00):
Hi and welcome back to the Current.
This is Pastor Chris Nafis ofLiving Water Church and today I
am delighted to have joining meon the show Dr Rebecca Laird,
who is the Dean of the School ofTheology and Christian Ministry
here at Point Loma NazareneUniversity, where we're
recording this episode.
She has also been the spiritualdirector, done a lot of work in
pastoral ministry, lived incommunity, been active in
(00:25):
marginalized communities andjust a generally wonderful and
amazing person and pastor andprofessor.
We had a great conversationabout Henry Allen, about
spirituality and spiritualdirection, wisdom, all sorts of
things.
I hope you'll enjoy thisconversation as much as I
enjoyed having it here.
It is All right.
(00:58):
Well, dr Laird, thank you somuch for giving me a little bit
of your time and being willingto just kind of invest in our
community and in the listenersof this with some of your
expertise and your experienceand your wisdom.
So thanks for joining me.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (01:11):
Wow, my pleasure.
Chris Nafis (01:12):
Thank you for asking yeah, not everybody knows
.
I mean, you're a very famousperson, obviously, but not
everyone knows who you are.
Could you kind of introduceyourself a little bit for us and
just tell us your backgroundand what kind of work you do,
and that kind of thing?
Sure.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (01:28):
You make me laugh.
My world is a world that'sconnected to commitments, to
spiritual formation, urbanministry, education, and so I am
at the end of my formal careeras the Dean of the School of
Theology and Christian Ministryand I am Professor of Christian
(01:49):
Ministry and Practice, so I'vespent years in pastoral ministry
.
Before that I worked inresources, in books, in
spirituality publications, andso my whole career over the
course of 40-some years has beento help people grow deeper in
their faith, and sometimesthat's taken an educational
(02:09):
route and sometimes that's takena resource route or a ministry
route, but it seems to me to beall of a piece.
Chris Nafis (02:18):
Okay, yeah, and so I've known I actually haven't
taken a class with you oranything.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (02:24):
I've helped, kind of lecture in some of your
classes you have.
Thank you for that.
Chris Nafis (02:28):
I've sat in on one of your workshops on spiritual
direction, which was reallyinteresting, and so I just kind
of know your work, mostlythrough other people being
involved in student ministries.
I know some of your pastoralhistory and then I know you're
doing this deep spiritualdirection work and so you just
have all these different avenuesthat you're investing in people
, right.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (02:46):
Yes, yes, I have felt like a commitment to
and a call to ministry was tosay yes to being about the
gospel wherever I ended up.
So I've worked in a variety oftypes of churches, both suburban
and very, very urban, and thenI've been in educational spaces,
both in church education,church-based education or
(03:09):
formation, and in higher ed.
So the institutions change, butthe core commitments have not
changed that much.
Chris Nafis (03:17):
Yeah, and you're one of those people.
You know, there's like certainpeople that everybody, every
time they say their name,everyone's like oh, they're so
amazing, they're so wonderful.
And like, you're one of thosepeople that anytime I hear.
Dr Laird, everybody's like, ohman, she's the best, we love her
and she's been so helpful in mylife.
And you know, it's just, you'rejust one of those like people
that just I don't know invest sodeeply in others, and so I
(03:40):
appreciate your ministry.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (03:42):
I will say that I find people interesting,
and when you're curious aboutpeople and are interested in
seeing where's the spark thespark of calling, or the spark
of love or the pain it's alwaysa good thing to be in
conversation with people.
Chris Nafis (03:58):
Yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (03:59):
So that makes me happy, and I'm glad when
that makes other people happytoo.
Chris Nafis (04:02):
Yeah, for sure well , and maybe that's a good place
to start with talking about likekind of spirituality and
spiritual direction, because youknow, maybe that's the entry
point for sometimes, like so,when you're thinking of
investing in a person, likeeither in a spiritual direction
sense or a student that you'rementoring, or kind of in
investing in along the way, youknow, like how, what's your
approach?
Like what are you looking for,what are you looking to ask, to
(04:25):
instill?
You know, those kinds of things, sure, sure.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (04:28):
I think my own awakening post-college, when
I was taking early classes inseminary.
I was working full-time in apublishing firm, so I took one
class at a time.
And I remember taking a classon the history of Christian
spirituality and they assignedus to read Elrod of Riveau from
the 12th century.
(04:48):
All about spiritual friendship,spiritual direction.
I had never heard the termbefore and it was like what is
that?
Where can I get some of that?
Did they do that in mytradition and if so, what's that
look like?
And I think that was coupledwith an even earlier
understanding which I think mostpeople have, which is they want
(05:10):
to know more about themselves,about God.
Where do I find meaning?
Where do I go when I'm stuck?
Can God be in the hard thingsas well as the good things and
much of church life?
Growing up as I did in thechurch, I knew God was
everywhere in sort of anabstract kind of way.
But to know that, where do Ifind God or the holy?
(05:31):
In the mundane details of mylife or in the things that seem
like total disasters?
Right, I didn't know.
I kind of thought that was true,but I didn't know where to go
with that, and I think the questfor to go with that, and I
think the quest for spiritualityis often that how do I make
sense of my life?
Where do I connect with God?
Where do I find meaning?
(05:52):
And so I'm always interested inthose questions and I think
when I'm teaching I try to bringquestions and ask people to
live into them, and that's whereGod takes over right.
You don't have to ask people togo a certain place.
It's an encounter with thosesort of existential questions,
because we all have some of them, and spirituality is that place
(06:15):
where we allow for that, withina framework of trusting that
we're not just navel gazing orsorting out ourselves
psychologically that there'sactually something bigger than
that going on.
You know that there is a God,that there is intention in the
world, even when it seems likeproof is not there.
Chris Nafis (06:36):
Yeah Well, especially being here.
So we're recording this atPoint Loma Nazarene University
where, you know, in the Wesleycenter, and this is a place of
theological education and thosesorts of things.
I guess what strikes me is, Ifeel like even in my own work,
my emphasis tends to be more ontheology and doctrine and big
ideas and calling and thosekinds of things, and I feel like
(06:58):
those don't necessarily rub upagainst spirituality in a bad
way at all.
In many ways they can becomeenmeshed, but they can also be
very separate, right, and so ourpersonal spiritual journeys can
sometimes feel detached fromthe abstract ideas that we're
talking about in sermons or inchurch or in Bible study or in
(07:21):
taking a theology class.
I don't know, would youdistinguish spirituality from
like theology?
You know what I mean.
I don't know if I'm getting atthe question I'm looking for.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (07:31):
Sure, there's certainly a speculative and
abstract way of doing theology,and we often do that to former
minds, and that's good.
Spirituality is usually alittle bit more about lived
theology.
How does that abstract ideaactually get concretized?
How does it get lived out in myown world?
(07:51):
And if there's real disconnectsbetween the ideal of what I've
been wrestling with, sort ofintellectually, and the reality
of my life in that tension isoften where spirituality comes
in, and it's again not justthinking, it's also sometimes
(08:12):
learning how to practice or livein your world in a way that
brings some more congruencebetween what you say, you
believe intellectually and theway you live your life.
So there's a moral dimension toit as well as a practicality.
Chris Nafis (08:24):
Yeah, yes, I mean this may be a really broad
question, but what does it meanto live a meaningful spiritual
life, like a reflective life,that is, taking those kind of
spiritual questions seriously ina way that's enriching life?
(08:44):
Is that too big of a question?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (08:46):
to question?
I don't think so.
I guess what comes to my mindis just simply an illustration,
to say sort of a simple practicethat's been done by Jesuits and
others for a really long time.
Is the prayer of examine rightTo stop at the end of every day,
look back over 24 hours or soand say where did I find love
and goodness and consolation andmeaning and where did I find
(09:10):
the disconnects and where did Ifeel like I was unhooked from
the life source?
Questions like that, living alife that asks that kind of
reflective musing at the end ofthe day, that's very prayerful
and Meaningful Life, is morerooted in that kind of reality
(09:30):
of saying, oh, I keep findingthat every day when I see the
ocean, when I'm walking fromhere to there, I feel a little
bit revived and I feel like youknow it gives me energy for the
rest of the day.
You notice that then youlengthen that gazing time from
just walking fast from your carto actually saying this is me
(09:53):
connecting with the beauty ofnature all around me and that's
a part of how I find meaning.
And then, if you find alsoplaces which, oh, every time I
don't look at the ocean or I'mtoo cranky or I haven't eaten or
whatever.
I find that I get snappy withpeople and I don't like to do
(10:15):
that, so I keep doing that.
So how do I infuse my life withthe kind of choices that I do
have control over?
Because there's a lot we don'thave control over choices that I
do have control over, becausethere's a lot we don't have
control over.
But when we do pay attention tothe mindful ways of living, then
all of a sudden the meaningpart isn't just sort of waiting
for some big, huge, transcendentmoment where it's like my life
(10:35):
has meaning because, blah, youknow big thing, it's like no, my
life has meaning because everyday I get to walk in beauty.
My day has meaning because whenI take care of myself, I can
receive that person at threeo'clock in the afternoon with
happiness and joy and maybe makea connection rather than, you
(10:55):
know, just getting cynical anddismissive because I'm open to
the opportunity of the day andthe moment.
So I think meaning is found inlooking certainly at you know
what's it all about?
Questions, but also being veryaware of how do I choose to live
this day, based on who I am,not some sort of model of what I
(11:17):
think I should be, but with thehope of growing into the
fullness of who we are.
Chris Nafis (11:23):
Yeah, man, and I can see how, like so, we've been
doing not the exam, but asimilar morning prayer practice
that we've kind of encouragedour church folks to do.
I don't know how many peopleare actually doing it, but our
family's been trying to do itimperfectly.
But in the morning we're kindof thinking back on the day
before and looking back at, like, well, what wisdom can I learn
from my experiences yesterdayand where do I need to ask for
(11:46):
forgiveness and where do I needto set my intention for today?
What am I looking to do today?
And you can see how thatpractice over time can help you
to be more present in your days.
It can help you plan better forthe meaningful practices that
are going to give you life, allthe things that you're saying.
You can see how just havingthat moment of check-in can
(12:06):
actually guide your whole lifeif you let it Right.
And that's a big uh, a big partof sort of being spiritually
aware of, like, how you're doingand where you are.
Um, yeah, I want to ask.
So one of the it's helpful inthese conversations I've found
to have some kind of framingwork, and so the thing that I
pitched to you when I asked youto come on here was to talk a
little bit about Henry Nowen,because I know you've worked
(12:28):
with him some and you've editedbooks or helped edit books that
are written in his name andyou've written forewords and
those kinds of things.
So can you I mean, noteverybody knows who Henry Nouwen
is Our church, the WatershedGathering at our church, the
church board just finished, orwe're about to finish, one of
his books on living a spirituallife it's called Life of the
(12:49):
Beloved Spiritual being in aSecular World, which is really
good.
His writing is so just,graceful and simple but deep at
the same time.
I guess I'm doing what I'mgoing to ask you to do.
Could you kind of introduceHenry Nouwen a little bit, tell
us who he is and what hiswriting has been?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (13:26):
Sure, sure, classic contemplative
spirituality together with theburgeoning world of psychology
and pastoral theology.
So he came from the Netherlandsto first the Manninger Clinic
and then Notre Dame to do thissort of really new work of
trying to express in modernlanguage the connections between
you know, the call toconnection with one another and
(13:46):
the issues of vulnerability andintimacy.
So he was bringing two languagesystems, if you will, that are
about pursuing meaning, together.
He called himself a hyphenatedpriest, psychologist right,
because he, in being the personhe was called to be, didn't
really fit tidily in eithercategory, which led to, I think,
(14:09):
the beauty of his writing,because he wanted to be pastoral
, he didn't want to be clinical.
When he wrote his first booksthey were more clinical and it
was only when he started writingpastorally that people began to
say what you're saying and thisis a quote from somebody that I
heard say you're basicallywriting the contours of my heart
(14:31):
, how did you know?
And only when he wrote from apersonal and pastoral
perspective did he connect withhis readers.
And he really did.
And so, being early in pastoraltheology in a way that was very
psychologically astute, notseeing them as completely
separate, he was able to weavetogether the Christian spiritual
(14:52):
tradition and self-reflectionin a way that's been very
meaningful to many people.
That led him to an appointmentat Yale where he was for many
years very productive years.
Then he went on to Harvard andso he'd reached in writing in
his second language.
I always want to say he'swriting in his second language,
(15:12):
I didn't even know that.
Chris Nafis (15:13):
I don't think I knew that because he's such a
good writer.
Oh, he's amazing, yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (15:17):
He was writing in his second language,
that he was very productive andwrote all these beautiful books.
But he got to Harvard sort ofthe pinnacle of the academic
arena in the US and in manyplaces in the world and he found
himself very lonely.
(15:38):
He said there's a lot of peoplehere but nobody wants to pray
with me.
Everyone wants to debate.
Some of his theologicalcolleagues looked down on him
and his classes because he wasfilling these big classrooms to
overflowing because peoplewanted to talk about prayer.
And they're going.
You're giving grades for peoplein prayer, right?
(15:58):
At Harvard Elite intellectualinstitution, and so it was a
place that didn't feel like homeand that really set him on a
journey of saying where do Ibelong next?
And I think this is where manyof us that would resonate with
words around the downward pathor, you know, solidarity with
(16:22):
under-resourced peoples orwhatever.
It's where Henry kind of comesinto the story, because he
thought he would probably moveto South America, to Peru or
something, and he went and triedto live among the poor and
wrote some beautiful books.
But somebody helped himrecognize his job wasn't to live
among the poor but to announceand give voice to those who
(16:43):
didn't have voice.
And so he began writingdifferently and eventually it
ended that he received a call tocome be a part of a L'Arche
community or community thatcenters the disabled, and then
he spent the last 10 years ofhis life at a large community in
Canada.
(17:04):
I met him when I was a young20-something.
I was an editor at Harper RowPublishing, which has now got
other names Harper, sanFrancisco, etc.
But it was a mainstreamreligious publisher.
So I got the amazing educationof working with all sorts of.
So I got the amazing educationof working with all sorts of
extraordinary thinkers andwriters as the person who either
(17:25):
photocopied or helped with thefiles or, you know, worked with
the copy editors or managed thekind of processes.
But Henry was one of theauthors who came through.
So I got to know him and workedon some study guides and
various things.
Then Simultaneously my husband,who went to Yale, was a student
(17:45):
of his during his Yale years andso he knew him too, and so
Henry was somebody we met incommon separately but had in
common.
So Henry would come to SanFrancisco at our little urban
church that my husband waspastoring and I like to say he
would preach at St Mary's andthey'd give him a $5,000
(18:08):
honorarium and fill the placeand then he'd come over to us
and hand the check over and havedinner with our homeless folks,
and that tells you a lot aboutwho he was, and he was very
interested in our ministry atthe time and so we stayed in
touch with him and he died in1996, so it's been quite a long
(18:31):
time now.
But he was on sabbatical in NewJersey where we were living at
the time.
So I actually did the lastinterview with him for a little
publication I was working on andwe heard that he had died just
days after, so I could stillhear his voice in my head.
And not long after that I wentto a spiritual director's
(18:52):
training program and people hadheard that I knew Henry Nowlin
because we were talking abouthim in light of his death.
And all these people came andtold me stories like the one I
remember so distinctly was awoman saying she'd really
struggled with infertility andthrough that journey Henry was
the only person through hiswriting that could get to her,
(19:16):
could give her consolation, andI thought what's this Catholic
priest?
who was never married and didn'thave any kids and doesn't know
anything about your life.
Chris Nafis (19:25):
What was it?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (19:26):
that made him sort of her spiritual director.
Out of that came sort of thesense of call, I would say, to
put together the first book ofHenry Nowen's writings on
spiritual direction from a classthat he taught at Yale in
spiritual direction that myhusband, the pack rat, still had
his notes from.
Chris Nafis (19:47):
He still had all his notes and you guys pulled
them out and were able toconsolidate some of his writing
on spiritual directionspecifically.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (19:55):
Yes, and that was the first book and we
worked with the Henry NowenArchives they're at the
University of Toronto and so,with the archivist pulling
together articles he'd writtenand various kinds of things, as
my husband likes to say, wehelped Henry write a few more
books than he would have if hehad enough time.
Chris Nafis (20:14):
What a gift to the world to have more Henry Nowen.
I mean he wrote a lot of books.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (20:17):
He wrote 40.
He wrote 40.
Chris Nafis (20:21):
Well, what was it for the, for the woman, what was
it that was so significant inher spiritual?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (20:26):
well, I just think that, like the comment
that I I referred to by somebodyelse, it's like he knew the
contours of suffering andvulnerability and I think for
this woman that experience wasso isolating and people didn't
understand or she didn't havepeople to talk to.
That somebody who speaks tovulnerability and the uh, he
(20:49):
speaks a lot to the temptationto self-rejection, and so I
think it was that kind of umhumanity.
I mean, that's the thing, henry, I was known to say that he had
learned that what's the mostpersonal is actually the most
universal, not in the particulardetails, but in the existential
(21:10):
connection.
Chris Nafis (21:11):
Yeah, which is how a Catholic priest, male Catholic
priest, can connect withsomeone struggling with
infertility, probably a totallydifferent age than him.
Oh, absolutely, absolutelyPretty absolutely Absolutely.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (21:22):
Pretty much every woman in her twenties and
he would have been a man in hislate sixties if he had lived
Right and I was like what's theconnection?
And it is that touch of beingreally connected to your
humanity which he was.
Chris Nafis (21:37):
And if you read him like you really can feel that
in the writing like you can.
He kind of understandsloneliness, you know, which is
something that I think almosteverybody deals with in today's
age.
Maybe people have always dealtwith loneliness, I don't know.
It seems like it's it's abigger burden on contemporary
people than it has been in thepast and he just knows those
kind of spiritual wrestlings andwrestling with kind of faith
(22:01):
and faithfulness and calling andfinding meaning in the little
things and being present, andjust all those things are such
universal experiences and hejust brings them out so
concisely and so beautifullythat when you read them you feel
like he, like you said, youfeel like he's in your head or
something.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (22:18):
Yeah, he started looking over your
shoulder.
He knows what your life is like.
Chris Nafis (22:21):
Yeah, so what have you taken away as, like, a
spiritual director or someonewho's kind of your work is to do
the same kind of pastoral workthat he's doing in his books?
And you're a writer too, buthow do you like?
What do you take away from that?
What did he teach you?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (22:36):
I think two of the things that I really take
away from Henry.
One is when he did spiritualdirection, it was mostly through
writing.
He did some at the largecommunity and daybreak through
what they called spiritualaccompaniment, and so I love
that word, that you're justreally accompanying somebody and
helping them as they sit in thepresence of God to recognize
(22:57):
what God may be doing, butthey're too close to see it
Right.
And so you join people on thishuman journey and you get to
kind of be the scout to payattention to what others are
bringing.
They're the ones walking thejourney, but sometimes you need
a little friendly distance,somebody else to help you see
things.
And so I think that's true ofspiritual direction, direction
(23:22):
writ large, but now and reallyhad that sense of accompaniment.
Um, you know, the few times Iwas with him one-on-one, there
wasn't too many, it was usuallybetween here or there, it was in
groups.
Uh, one time I remember beingin a car with him and he was a
terrible driver because hepreferred to talk, not drive,
and so I remember just beinglike look at at the.
You know he was taking me atthe train station.
(23:43):
I was like, look at the road.
But what I remember.
He was so curious about me.
I was a mother of two smallkids, working part-time.
My husband was a graduateschool.
There was nothing veryinteresting about me.
He thought I was so interestingand I try to bring that to
people because people areinteresting and he brought that
(24:06):
real.
He saw people as gifts in hispath, somebody to learn
something from.
So I think that enthusiasm forpeople comes from him.
He also in the book that wewrote on spiritual direction
from his writings he starts withsort of identifying persistent
questions when do I belong?
How can I be of service?
Who is God to me?
(24:27):
What is prayer?
Questions that you kind ofcycle through over and over
again who am I?
And I think it's been reallyhelpful to have that in the back
of my mind of saying whatpersistent question am I hearing
from this person?
What is it that they reallyseem to be wrestling with?
Is this an identity thing?
Is this a calling question?
(24:49):
Because often we're thinkingabout a concrete decision to be
made but there may be somebigger flow or bigger question
that's at play, just becausethey're there in our lives.
We need to serve, we need touse our gifts, we need to belong
(25:09):
, we need to have some healingfrom our pain, and so I think
having some awareness thateverybody's got a persistent
question or something, that'sthe big deal right now that
being able to listen with people, for that is a part of the gift
that he has offered.
Chris Nafis (25:29):
Yeah, that's really helpful actually, and I'm
taking this in for myself and myown pastoral work.
You know, for those you know,so, like as a pastor, I'm like
this is what I need to learn howto do better.
You know, for many of thepeople that may be listening to
this not sort of in that rolenecessarily, but are in their
(25:50):
own spiritual journey, trying tofigure out you know, how to
make big decisions, or how tolive a life where they're more
present, or how to break a badhabit or many bad habits, or you
know, or how to break a badhabit or many bad habits, or you
know, apart from maybe justpraying the exam and having
those moments of check-in Likehow would you suggest people go
about fostering a moremeaningful day-to-day spiritual
(26:12):
life?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (26:13):
Yeah, yeah, the core that Henry Nouwen would
put forward is to say if you'regoing to really seek to discern
, you need to be a part of acommunity.
You've got to be engaged withthe discipline of the church,
which you would say is communityChristian people.
You have to be connected to thediscipline of the book.
You've got to read the booksomehow and connect with the
(26:38):
discipline of the heart.
You've got to have some way ofpraying that.
If you're seeking discernmentbut you're not doing those
things, it's sort of like sayingyou want to get stronger but
you have an aversion to liftingweights.
Well, if you don't lift weights, then what are you going to do?
Are you going to do push-ups?
I don't want to do push-ups, Idon't want anything.
Well, you really don't want toget stronger than right, right.
(26:59):
So there are some corepractices and then, from that,
questions of discernment.
You know, he, there's a wholeanother book on discernment.
so if you want that, that yeah,yeah, the book on discernment is
sort of, um, that if you'reattending to your uh you, you
sort of accept the fact that godwishes to be known and wants to
(27:19):
guide you.
And so are you paying attentionto the people on your path.
What are people saying?
Yeah, right, if you actuallywant to do something and you ask
people for their feedback aboutwhat you're good at, or when
they see you falling off thewagon and picking up habits that
(27:41):
have been things you've beentrying to break, what do they
see?
When do you do that?
What are others noticing?
You know they'll help yourecognize your stresses or your
your weak points or whatever.
So what are people saying?
And maybe, what are otherpeople saying?
Are you asking other peoplewho've actually changed that
habit?
You know what.
Are you listening to people inyour path?
Are you asking other peoplewho've actually changed that
(28:02):
habit?
You know what.
Are you listening to people inyour path?
Are you looking for some sortof magic solution that's only
for you, because most of thetime, we're less unique than we
think.
Chris Nafis (28:14):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like so many of us are just
bent.
We're so stubborn, we don'twant to do the thing that
everyone tells us to do.
We want to find our own path.
We want to do it differentlyand sometimes like getting over
ourselves a bit and just doingthe thing.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (28:27):
That's right.
Chris Nafis (28:28):
Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (28:31):
That's discerning people in your path,
sort of what time is it both inyour life?
Is this a realistic time foryou to do that thing Right?
Sometimes people are like Iwant to.
You know, run off and join thecircus.
And then he said you got threekids right.
How many do you have?
Three boys?
Yeah.
Maybe, if you tell me you wantto run off and join the circus,
(28:51):
I'll say what time is it in yourlife?
Chris, I already live in thecircus Dr Laird, so but to sort
of say there are times in ourlives and there are sometimes
yearnings that will come to passor there'll be a moment for
that.
But is it now?
Is it too soon for that?
So, paying attention to thetime in your life, the people in
your path, you know, some ofthose kinds of discernment
(29:14):
questions really do help be abit of a sorting hat.
And it's not magic like thesorting hat is in Harry Potter.
It's really discerning.
Sorting because that's whatreally discerning is sorting
with the love of God, to figureout what's the next step for me,
Reminds me of.
Chris Nafis (29:34):
we went through some of the wisdom literature a
few years ago and I rememberpreaching on one of the passages
in Proverbs where, you know,wisdom is personified and it's
like wisdom is crying out to youfrom the street corners, it's
calling after you all over theplace.
But if you won't listen, youknow, if you're not going to do
the hard work of actuallylistening to the wisdom that's
around you, from yourexperiences, from being
(29:56):
reflective on what you've beenthrough, from the people around
you who want to speak life andwisdom into your life and kind
of taking the time to engage inthose practices.
Yeah, like you said, it's liketrying to get strong without
working out.
You know just probably notgoing to work.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (30:15):
No, and I find that sometimes in spiritual
direction, people will comeback and keep asking the same
kind of thing and sometimes theyjust have to keep talking to
themselves until they actuallyhear themselves.
But sometimes it's the role ofthe director is to say you keep
asking the same question, butevery time you commit to doing
something, you don't take thatstep.
What's that about?
(30:35):
Yeah, right, because sometimesdiscernment isn't easy and
sometimes the next steps that wetake there'll be a sense of
rightness.
But that doesn't mean that it'snot going to be without effort.
Chris Nafis (30:48):
Yeah, yeah, cause sometimes the question is, what
do I do?
And sometimes, like you, knowwhat you're supposed to do.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (30:54):
What other support do you need?
Or do you just are you readyfor a gentle nudge?
Yeah, yeah.
Chris Nafis (31:01):
How do you know?
So I mean, this is a question II'm trying to learn more for
myself.
You know, like I feel liketoday again I don't know if this
is an issue for today or ifthis is an issue of all time but
I feel like it's really hard toeven talk to close friends
about like hard things, to kindof be a little confrontational
in seeing patterns that youthink, like this person keeps
(31:25):
telling me they're frustratedabout this and I can see what
they're doing and it's notworking.
But you know, it feels likewe're always supposed to just be
always encouraging one anotherand always kind of affirming one
another, and I think there'ssomething beautiful about being
in someone's corner and alwayshaving their back.
But sometimes you know, we haveto be able to tell someone
(31:45):
something hard that they don'twant to hear.
You know, I think that isprobably the role of a spiritual
director more than most.
How do you do that, like, howdo you do it gracefully and
lovingly and how do you do it ina way that can be heard and not
rejected?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (32:00):
Yeah, yeah, I think that sometimes it's
easier in a spiritual directionrelationship than it is in a
friendship, because people areintentionally coming to you for
that.
I tend to offer hard thingswith a little encouragement as
well not be too blunt.
But the folks I work witharound here will say sometimes
in the morning, if you've nothad your coffee, it comes out
(32:22):
really straight, really blunt,it's like whoa.
So that can happen.
But I think often you just sortof say we've talked around this
and do you really want a directresponse on this?
And if they say yes and usuallypeople do, because they've been
(32:44):
coming to you to try to sortthings out and then you say you
may not like this, but I'm goingto just tell it to you straight
, I'm going to say it in as kindof a tone as I can.
But I have to be really honest.
I think most of the time peoplereceive that as a good if
there's a relationship of trustand usually that is you don't do
(33:07):
that early on because youwouldn't know what to say early
on.
You have to know somebody for awhile and they have to know
that.
If they don't hear it that wayor they want to disregard what
you say, that that's theirprivilege too, the person who's
in spiritual direction or in anyrelationship.
The agency belongs to them.
People don't have to do what Ithink is right they don't, they
(33:28):
don't, and sometimes they domuch better.
Chris Nafis (33:34):
Sometimes they override you in there, sometimes
they actually know themselves.
Yeah, but I think that's helpfulto be able to give that word,
because sometimes it reallytakes courage to say something
that you know you need to sayright, but to be able to be
courageous and say know you needto say right, but to be able to
be courageous and say the thingyou need to say, but then also
to let it go and say, all right,I've put it out there, I've
(33:54):
kind of done my part in this,and now it's up to the person to
kind of find their own way.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (34:00):
And I will love you, whether you receive
this or not.
Yeah, you receive this or not.
Yeah, I just feel like in thecontext, I'm sort of speaking as
if I'm speaking to someone, butin the context of this
relationship and this commitment, I need to say this, and what
you do with it is yours well, onthe flip side of that, like as
someone who maybe receives aword of uh, challenge or um
(34:25):
confrontation, you, how do youreceive it?
Chris Nafis (34:28):
Well, because I feel like there's different ways
to receive it poorly.
One, you know, I thinksometimes we tend to beat
ourselves up and be sohypercritical.
Someone says a word of slightnon-approval and then we just
beat ourselves to death.
And other times we're we're insuch denial about the reality
that we just can't hear it.
You, um, you know, how do wefoster a kind of a presence and
(34:51):
a being that is open to thatkind of wisdom?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (34:55):
I think the daily practices are a part of
that, right.
If you're learning how to bereflective, if you're learning
how to pause at the end of theday and look back, you'll'll see
things.
They're like oof, not so great.
I blew right past that person.
That was a cruel word, oof,right.
So if you're in a reflectivemode and you are willing to see
(35:18):
those places, in the smallthings and sort of in the
privacy of your own being, thenlearning how to take feedback
begins to be a part of yourassumption about life.
There are things that I can'tsee at the time.
There are things that I'm tooclose to see and that this
trusted person who prays for meand who loves me, if they're
(35:41):
going to say this, then I'll atleast have to go think about it,
right?
And I do think that a goodspiritual director will know
somebody to know whether theyerr on the side of scrupulosity
or on the side of you know,small criticisms are going to go
beat themselves up.
You're going to be very carefuland to say I know you.
(36:03):
You might take this word and gohome and use it as some sort of
way to you know, beat yourselfup with.
Let's not take that tact, youknow, if you start to feel like
you can beat yourself up, isthere another way to think about
how can you hold that Right?
How could you hold thisinformation?
Because you're helping theperson not only hear the
information but to sort offigure out what to do with it.
(36:25):
If there's somebody else who'slike easy to just sort of
dismiss that they don't likestuff, and if they hear a
negative thing, they're justgoing to say, ah, she's just
full of it, right, I don't needto listen to her.
It took a lot for us to get tothis.
You know, will you make acommitment to think about it
(36:45):
tonight?
Take 10 minutes to think aboutthis, right?
So if you know somebody thesekinds of things, if somebody's
really hard on themselves or alittle too easy on themselves,
you usually have some sense ofthat.
Chris Nafis (36:58):
Yeah, so you can kind of adjust the.
Yeah, I think we all kind of dothat just naturally with
friends.
We know people who havedifferent tendencies and we can
kind of adjust our communicationin mind of that.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Lai (37:14):
Encouragement's more fun.
Chris Nafis (37:15):
Encouragement is absolutely more fun.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (37:20):
I actually.
I would also say I have aphilosophy.
I think it came out of some ofmy graduate work in picking a
methodology I worked.
It came out of some of mygraduate work in picking a
methodology.
I worked with appreciative,inquiry kinds of methodology and
it's sort of looking at asituation, a person, an
institution and trying toidentify where is this thing
growing.
You know, it's sort of like ifyou see a plant in a room, it's
(37:44):
going to grow to the light.
How is this person growing?
How can you be a part of that?
And a plant can grow andflourish and bloom.
Even if there's dead branchesover here.
You don't have to try to makeeverything tidy.
And so in trying to help peoplegrow in the direction of where
(38:15):
God's energy is found or wherethey come to life, it's easier
to help people grow and asthey're growing, then sometimes
the snipping away of some ofthese other dead branches
doesn't matter so much.
But, if people are in a seasonwhen they don't feel there's
been any greenness or any growthor life's been so hard and I
think encouragements is oftentend that way, you know, lean
into that yeah yeah, yeah, it'snot so like in our context we
(38:36):
have a lot of people that arevery they're in crisis a lot,
you know, in life and sometimespeople need both.
Chris Nafis (38:44):
They need encouragement because it can be
so disheartening to experiencehomelessness, for example, or to
struggle with addiction andhave relapses.
It's so tempting to justdespair and give up and I think
we need that encouragement.
But then also, I think peopleoften need to be challenged too,
because in the you know, in theharsher experiences of the
(39:07):
world, you know, we end updeveloping a lot of bad habits
because of our sort of limitedresources, limited ability to
cope.
You know like we pick up thingsthat are unhelpful and that are
kind of continuing to cycle usin, and I don't know you've been
in those contexts a lot.
Do you have any advice for achurch like ours as we try to
(39:29):
find our way towardsdiscipleship?
You know a bit about our church.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (39:32):
Yeah, I do, I do, and I love your church.
I love the one-room context ofyou know, come and bring all the
things, whether you need toplug in your phone or you need
food, or it's a rainy night orit's worship time or whatever.
You know, I think, and this isbasic stuff.
(39:58):
But when people know you reallycare, that's job one right.
How do you get through ahorrible day?
Somebody offers some humanityto you.
And then the long-term thingsit's accountability and knowing
that most people mess up a fewtimes before they get it right.
(40:20):
All that kind of love andcompassion serves well.
But if people are caught in thedepths of multiple challenges,
they need multiple people.
It's the mosaic of care.
I think that helps, and aspiritual director can help with
a piece of it.
You need the social worker andyou need the clinician and you
(40:43):
need the housing advocate.
There's no easy solution tothat, but I think encouraging
people to sort of say this isyour, your team, your group, and
it's not just to help you, butthat you are you're.
You're a gift to this group too.
(41:05):
Everybody here needs to give,and and you need to give.
Where are you offeringsomething back, buddy?
Chris Nafis (41:12):
Yes, right, yeah, for sure.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (41:16):
And I think that's when we mentioned the
L'Arche community before.
One of the things I reallylearned from L'Arche is that
it's a with and not one personcan't be on the receiving end
all the time and one person orgroups of people being on the
giving end, because that'swarped, it's with and that's
hard sometimes for people whoare struggling so hard to just
(41:38):
survive.
But I think when that istouched, every once in a while
you see the gift in somebody andthey get to offer it it when
they've just felt like they havenothing to offer.
That is, in my experience,often when the growth begins.
You know it's that growingtoward delight, but you've got
(41:58):
to have your switch turned onFor sure, and I think I mean
that was so like our church wasfor those.
Chris Nafis (42:04):
Many of you who maybe listen to this know this
because you're part of thechurch.
But we were kind of born out ofthis desire to get over this
one-way relationship of like wecome downtown and feed you
that's right and you receive,and to say how can we be
brothers and sisters?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (42:17):
in.
Chris Nafis (42:17):
Christ together and how can we serve alongside one
another and be served alongsideone another.
And I think you know there'sbeen seasons in the life of our
church we've done that reallywell and others where it's been
a bit of a struggle.
But I think keeping that dooropen, inviting people to serve
and encouraging people to stepinto that invitation I mean, in
some ways, you know, havingsomeone volunteer for something
(42:43):
is more full of life and growthand spiritual richness than any
kind of like blessing you cangive from your word of mouth or
anything the community can do tosupport you is to offer that
chance, because there's so muchdignity and empowerment in that.
So hopefully we can continue onthat legacy and pick it up in
areas that it's kind of droppedoff for us.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (43:04):
Henry Nowen at the end of his life, when he
went to L'Arche, one of thethings he began to recognize was
that, rather than he keptgetting big speaking engagements
, but he said, rather thanannouncing the people at L'Arche
, he was going to take peoplewith him.
So he took, at the last coupleyears of his life, all of his
speaking engagements.
He took one of the core members, one of the people with
(43:25):
disabilities, with him speakingengagements.
He took one of the core members, one of the people with
disabilities, with him and theywould steal the show and
afterwards no one would rememberwhat Henry said.
And it bothered him because hewas used to being sort of people
hanging on every word, and nowthey weren't necessarily.
They were thinking about whatBill said or they were thinking
about what the core members said, and he recognized that that
(43:49):
was also.
The call of his spiritualreality at that time of his life
was to um, you know, he said hewanted to announce the poor and
lift up the voices that um werevoiceless and one of the ways
to do that was to take somebodywith a different voice with him
and then to get over himselfRight and step aside, right Step
(44:10):
aside and let the spotlightchange, and let the deep wisdom
that often came in a packagethat people would never have
listened to if he wasn'tstanding next to them, let that
be God's messenger.
And it was a big ego learning.
Chris Nafis (44:28):
Yeah, I can see how that would be a challenge, and
I mean, someone like Nowen is sotransparent that he would share
it with everybody else in waysthat are helpful for us.
So you know, I've taken a lotof your time here.
I really appreciate you coming.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (44:42):
Thank you for asking.
I like talking about thesethings.
Chris Nafis (44:44):
Yeah, for those who haven't read much henry now,
and is there any book or booksthat you would recommend as like
an entryway into?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (45:02):
the depth of his.
Well, I think everybody hastheir.
That has the summary of hisvision, right?
You know, henry wrote a lot ofbooks but the themes are pretty
persistent and once he began towrite about our belovedness,
that that's the core of ouridentity.
That really articulates almosteverything else he's talking
(45:27):
about, and so I think theprodigal son probably speaks to
that one as well we have.
The ones I worked on wereSpiritual Direction, spiritual
Formation, and one of thereasons that book has been
helpful is it has a lot of artin it, because now it was a
great lover of art.
He traveled with a little iconof Rublev's Old Testament
(45:52):
trinity and he loved Van Gogh.
So almost everywhere he wenthe'd get sunflowers and put them
in a vase.
He needed beautiful images andthings around him.
So that brings some of thevisual aspects of spiritual
formation, because spiritualformation needs to have some
embodiment and it needs to useyour senses and not just your
(46:15):
brain.
So Nouwen's books that do bringsome of that together and that
spiritual formation is one ofthose.
He's written some books.
He wrote a book on icons Beholdthe Beauty of the Lord.
He's written some books.
He wrote a book on icons Beholdthe Beauty of the Lord,
describing how praying with anicon is not an idolatry, but
(46:35):
it's praying as if there's awindow to God in front of you
and it's beautiful so he looksthrough some of these ancient
icons, so he had differentseasons.
Chris Nafis (46:47):
Yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (46:48):
And it depends on whether you like the
sort of more interfaith earlyexploration or the psychological
engagement times or whether hissort of refined time at L'Arche
where he really understood theinterior life and community.
Chris Nafis (47:03):
Yeah, I even wrote a book of his on fundraising.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (47:06):
It is a spirituality, fundraising.
If I have to read something onmany things.
I even wrote a book of his onfundraising.
It is a spirituality offundraising, yeah.
Chris Nafis (47:08):
If I have to read something on fundraising, which
I think I have to do, might aswell read Henry Don's to some
other person, but it's deeplyrelational.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (47:14):
Yeah, it is.
I mean, that's what it's allabout.
Is people need to give?
Chris Nafis (47:18):
Yeah, Well, thank you.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (47:32):
Any to say before we close it out.
Just thank you for theopportunity.
I just think that I love whatyou do at Living Water and I
know that anybody who's tryingto look for the dignity of God
and the gift of God in others,particularly those who wear, as
Mother Teresa would say,sometimes the distrusting
disguise you know I'm all aboutthat, and Henry was too, so I
think that's why he resonatedwith me.
So fun conversation, Thank you.
Chris Nafis (47:51):
Well, thank you for your time, for all your
encouragement over the years andfree work.
Absolutely All right.
Okay, we'll catch you next time.
Thanks for listening all youcurrent people and yeah, thanks
again Dr Lange.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (48:04):
My pleasure, my pleasure, my pleasure.
Hi and welcome back to the Current.
This is Pastor Chris Nafis ofLiving Water Church and today I
am delighted to have joining meon the show Dr Rebecca Laird,
who is the Dean of the School ofTheology and Christian Ministry
here at Point Loma NazareneUniversity, where we're
recording this episode.
She has also been the spiritualdirector, done a lot of work in
pastoral ministry, lived incommunity, been active in
(00:25):
marginalized communities andjust a generally wonderful and
amazing person and pastor andprofessor.
We had a great conversationabout Henry Allen, about
spirituality and spiritualdirection, wisdom, all sorts of
things.
I hope you'll enjoy thisconversation as much as I
enjoyed having it here.
It is All right.
(00:58):
Well, dr Laird, thank you somuch for giving me a little bit
of your time and being willingto just kind of invest in our
community and in the listenersof this with some of your
expertise and your experienceand your wisdom.
So thanks for joining me.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (01:11):
Wow, my pleasure.
Chris Nafis (01:12):
Thank you for asking yeah, not everybody knows
.
I mean, you're a very famousperson, obviously, but not
everyone knows who you are.
Could you kind of introduceyourself a little bit for us and
just tell us your backgroundand what kind of work you do,
and that kind of thing?
Sure.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (01:28):
You make me laugh.
My world is a world that'sconnected to commitments, to
spiritual formation, urbanministry, education, and so I am
at the end of my formal careeras the Dean of the School of
Theology and Christian Ministryand I am Professor of Christian
(01:49):
Ministry and Practice, so I'vespent years in pastoral ministry
.
Before that I worked inresources, in books, in
spirituality publications, andso my whole career over the
course of 40-some years has beento help people grow deeper in
their faith, and sometimesthat's taken an educational
(02:09):
route and sometimes that's takena resource route or a ministry
route, but it seems to me to beall of a piece.
Chris Nafis (02:18):
Okay, yeah, and so I've known I actually haven't
taken a class with you oranything.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (02:24):
I've helped, kind of lecture in some of your
classes you have.
Thank you for that.
Chris Nafis (02:28):
I've sat in on one of your workshops on spiritual
direction, which was reallyinteresting, and so I just kind
of know your work, mostlythrough other people being
involved in student ministries.
I know some of your pastoralhistory and then I know you're
doing this deep spiritualdirection work and so you just
have all these different avenuesthat you're investing in people
, right.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (02:46):
Yes, yes, I have felt like a commitment to
and a call to ministry was tosay yes to being about the
gospel wherever I ended up.
So I've worked in a variety oftypes of churches, both suburban
and very, very urban, and thenI've been in educational spaces,
both in church education,church-based education or
(03:09):
formation, and in higher ed.
So the institutions change, butthe core commitments have not
changed that much.
Chris Nafis (03:17):
Yeah, and you're one of those people.
You know, there's like certainpeople that everybody, every
time they say their name,everyone's like oh, they're so
amazing, they're so wonderful.
And like, you're one of thosepeople that anytime I hear.
Dr Laird, everybody's like, ohman, she's the best, we love her
and she's been so helpful in mylife.
And you know, it's just, you'rejust one of those like people
that just I don't know invest sodeeply in others, and so I
(03:40):
appreciate your ministry.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (03:42):
I will say that I find people interesting,
and when you're curious aboutpeople and are interested in
seeing where's the spark thespark of calling, or the spark
of love or the pain it's alwaysa good thing to be in
conversation with people.
Chris Nafis (03:58):
Yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (03:59):
So that makes me happy, and I'm glad when
that makes other people happytoo.
Chris Nafis (04:02):
Yeah, for sure well , and maybe that's a good place
to start with talking about likekind of spirituality and
spiritual direction, because youknow, maybe that's the entry
point for sometimes, like so,when you're thinking of
investing in a person, likeeither in a spiritual direction
sense or a student that you'rementoring, or kind of in
investing in along the way, youknow, like how, what's your
approach?
Like what are you looking for,what are you looking to ask, to
(04:25):
instill?
You know, those kinds of things, sure, sure.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (04:28):
I think my own awakening post-college, when
I was taking early classes inseminary.
I was working full-time in apublishing firm, so I took one
class at a time.
And I remember taking a classon the history of Christian
spirituality and they assignedus to read Elrod of Riveau from
the 12th century.
(04:48):
All about spiritual friendship,spiritual direction.
I had never heard the termbefore and it was like what is
that?
Where can I get some of that?
Did they do that in mytradition and if so, what's that
look like?
And I think that was coupledwith an even earlier
understanding which I think mostpeople have, which is they want
(05:10):
to know more about themselves,about God.
Where do I find meaning?
Where do I go when I'm stuck?
Can God be in the hard thingsas well as the good things and
much of church life?
Growing up as I did in thechurch, I knew God was
everywhere in sort of anabstract kind of way.
But to know that, where do Ifind God or the holy?
(05:31):
In the mundane details of mylife or in the things that seem
like total disasters?
Right, I didn't know.
I kind of thought that was true,but I didn't know where to go
with that, and I think the questfor to go with that, and I
think the quest for spiritualityis often that how do I make
sense of my life?
Where do I connect with God?
Where do I find meaning?
(05:52):
And so I'm always interested inthose questions and I think
when I'm teaching I try to bringquestions and ask people to
live into them, and that's whereGod takes over right.
You don't have to ask people togo a certain place.
It's an encounter with thosesort of existential questions,
because we all have some of them, and spirituality is that place
(06:15):
where we allow for that, withina framework of trusting that
we're not just navel gazing orsorting out ourselves
psychologically that there'sactually something bigger than
that going on.
You know that there is a God,that there is intention in the
world, even when it seems likeproof is not there.
Chris Nafis (06:36):
Yeah Well, especially being here.
So we're recording this atPoint Loma Nazarene University
where, you know, in the Wesleycenter, and this is a place of
theological education and thosesorts of things.
I guess what strikes me is, Ifeel like even in my own work,
my emphasis tends to be more ontheology and doctrine and big
ideas and calling and thosekinds of things, and I feel like
(06:58):
those don't necessarily rub upagainst spirituality in a bad
way at all.
In many ways they can becomeenmeshed, but they can also be
very separate, right, and so ourpersonal spiritual journeys can
sometimes feel detached fromthe abstract ideas that we're
talking about in sermons or inchurch or in Bible study or in
(07:21):
taking a theology class.
I don't know, would youdistinguish spirituality from
like theology?
You know what I mean.
I don't know if I'm getting atthe question I'm looking for.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (07:31):
Sure, there's certainly a speculative and
abstract way of doing theology,and we often do that to former
minds, and that's good.
Spirituality is usually alittle bit more about lived
theology.
How does that abstract ideaactually get concretized?
How does it get lived out in myown world?
(07:51):
And if there's real disconnectsbetween the ideal of what I've
been wrestling with, sort ofintellectually, and the reality
of my life in that tension isoften where spirituality comes
in, and it's again not justthinking, it's also sometimes
(08:12):
learning how to practice or livein your world in a way that
brings some more congruencebetween what you say, you
believe intellectually and theway you live your life.
So there's a moral dimension toit as well as a practicality.
Chris Nafis (08:24):
Yeah, yes, I mean this may be a really broad
question, but what does it meanto live a meaningful spiritual
life, like a reflective life,that is, taking those kind of
spiritual questions seriously ina way that's enriching life?
(08:44):
Is that too big of a question?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (08:46):
to question?
I don't think so.
I guess what comes to my mindis just simply an illustration,
to say sort of a simple practicethat's been done by Jesuits and
others for a really long time.
Is the prayer of examine rightTo stop at the end of every day,
look back over 24 hours or soand say where did I find love
and goodness and consolation andmeaning and where did I find
(09:10):
the disconnects and where did Ifeel like I was unhooked from
the life source?
Questions like that, living alife that asks that kind of
reflective musing at the end ofthe day, that's very prayerful
and Meaningful Life, is morerooted in that kind of reality
(09:30):
of saying, oh, I keep findingthat every day when I see the
ocean, when I'm walking fromhere to there, I feel a little
bit revived and I feel like youknow it gives me energy for the
rest of the day.
You notice that then youlengthen that gazing time from
just walking fast from your carto actually saying this is me
(09:53):
connecting with the beauty ofnature all around me and that's
a part of how I find meaning.
And then, if you find alsoplaces which, oh, every time I
don't look at the ocean or I'mtoo cranky or I haven't eaten or
whatever.
I find that I get snappy withpeople and I don't like to do
(10:15):
that, so I keep doing that.
So how do I infuse my life withthe kind of choices that I do
have control over?
Because there's a lot we don'thave control over choices that I
do have control over, becausethere's a lot we don't have
control over.
But when we do pay attention tothe mindful ways of living, then
all of a sudden the meaningpart isn't just sort of waiting
for some big, huge, transcendentmoment where it's like my life
(10:35):
has meaning because, blah, youknow big thing, it's like no, my
life has meaning because everyday I get to walk in beauty.
My day has meaning because whenI take care of myself, I can
receive that person at threeo'clock in the afternoon with
happiness and joy and maybe makea connection rather than, you
(10:55):
know, just getting cynical anddismissive because I'm open to
the opportunity of the day andthe moment.
So I think meaning is found inlooking certainly at you know
what's it all about?
Questions, but also being veryaware of how do I choose to live
this day, based on who I am,not some sort of model of what I
(11:17):
think I should be, but with thehope of growing into the
fullness of who we are.
Chris Nafis (11:23):
Yeah, man, and I can see how, like so, we've been
doing not the exam, but asimilar morning prayer practice
that we've kind of encouragedour church folks to do.
I don't know how many peopleare actually doing it, but our
family's been trying to do itimperfectly.
But in the morning we're kindof thinking back on the day
before and looking back at, like, well, what wisdom can I learn
from my experiences yesterdayand where do I need to ask for
(11:46):
forgiveness and where do I needto set my intention for today?
What am I looking to do today?
And you can see how thatpractice over time can help you
to be more present in your days.
It can help you plan better forthe meaningful practices that
are going to give you life, allthe things that you're saying.
You can see how just havingthat moment of check-in can
(12:06):
actually guide your whole lifeif you let it Right.
And that's a big uh, a big partof sort of being spiritually
aware of, like, how you're doingand where you are.
Um, yeah, I want to ask.
So one of the it's helpful inthese conversations I've found
to have some kind of framingwork, and so the thing that I
pitched to you when I asked youto come on here was to talk a
little bit about Henry Nowen,because I know you've worked
(12:28):
with him some and you've editedbooks or helped edit books that
are written in his name andyou've written forewords and
those kinds of things.
So can you I mean, noteverybody knows who Henry Nouwen
is Our church, the WatershedGathering at our church, the
church board just finished, orwe're about to finish, one of
his books on living a spirituallife it's called Life of the
(12:49):
Beloved Spiritual being in aSecular World, which is really
good.
His writing is so just,graceful and simple but deep at
the same time.
I guess I'm doing what I'mgoing to ask you to do.
Could you kind of introduceHenry Nouwen a little bit, tell
us who he is and what hiswriting has been?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (13:26):
Sure, sure, classic contemplative
spirituality together with theburgeoning world of psychology
and pastoral theology.
So he came from the Netherlandsto first the Manninger Clinic
and then Notre Dame to do thissort of really new work of
trying to express in modernlanguage the connections between
you know, the call toconnection with one another and
(13:46):
the issues of vulnerability andintimacy.
So he was bringing two languagesystems, if you will, that are
about pursuing meaning, together.
He called himself a hyphenatedpriest, psychologist right,
because he, in being the personhe was called to be, didn't
really fit tidily in eithercategory, which led to, I think,
(14:09):
the beauty of his writing,because he wanted to be pastoral
, he didn't want to be clinical.
When he wrote his first booksthey were more clinical and it
was only when he started writingpastorally that people began to
say what you're saying and thisis a quote from somebody that I
heard say you're basicallywriting the contours of my heart
(14:31):
, how did you know?
And only when he wrote from apersonal and pastoral
perspective did he connect withhis readers.
And he really did.
And so, being early in pastoraltheology in a way that was very
psychologically astute, notseeing them as completely
separate, he was able to weavetogether the Christian spiritual
(14:52):
tradition and self-reflectionin a way that's been very
meaningful to many people.
That led him to an appointmentat Yale where he was for many
years very productive years.
Then he went on to Harvard andso he'd reached in writing in
his second language.
I always want to say he'swriting in his second language,
(15:12):
I didn't even know that.
Chris Nafis (15:13):
I don't think I knew that because he's such a
good writer.
Oh, he's amazing, yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (15:17):
He was writing in his second language,
that he was very productive andwrote all these beautiful books.
But he got to Harvard sort ofthe pinnacle of the academic
arena in the US and in manyplaces in the world and he found
himself very lonely.
(15:38):
He said there's a lot of peoplehere but nobody wants to pray
with me.
Everyone wants to debate.
Some of his theologicalcolleagues looked down on him
and his classes because he wasfilling these big classrooms to
overflowing because peoplewanted to talk about prayer.
And they're going.
You're giving grades for peoplein prayer, right?
(15:58):
At Harvard Elite intellectualinstitution, and so it was a
place that didn't feel like homeand that really set him on a
journey of saying where do Ibelong next?
And I think this is where manyof us that would resonate with
words around the downward pathor, you know, solidarity with
(16:22):
under-resourced peoples orwhatever.
It's where Henry kind of comesinto the story, because he
thought he would probably moveto South America, to Peru or
something, and he went and triedto live among the poor and
wrote some beautiful books.
But somebody helped himrecognize his job wasn't to live
among the poor but to announceand give voice to those who
(16:43):
didn't have voice.
And so he began writingdifferently and eventually it
ended that he received a call tocome be a part of a L'Arche
community or community thatcenters the disabled, and then
he spent the last 10 years ofhis life at a large community in
Canada.
(17:04):
I met him when I was a young20-something.
I was an editor at Harper RowPublishing, which has now got
other names Harper, sanFrancisco, etc.
But it was a mainstreamreligious publisher.
So I got the amazing educationof working with all sorts of.
So I got the amazing educationof working with all sorts of
extraordinary thinkers andwriters as the person who either
(17:25):
photocopied or helped with thefiles or, you know, worked with
the copy editors or managed thekind of processes.
But Henry was one of theauthors who came through.
So I got to know him and workedon some study guides and
various things.
Then Simultaneously my husband,who went to Yale, was a student
(17:45):
of his during his Yale years andso he knew him too, and so
Henry was somebody we met incommon separately but had in
common.
So Henry would come to SanFrancisco at our little urban
church that my husband waspastoring and I like to say he
would preach at St Mary's andthey'd give him a $5,000
(18:08):
honorarium and fill the placeand then he'd come over to us
and hand the check over and havedinner with our homeless folks,
and that tells you a lot aboutwho he was, and he was very
interested in our ministry atthe time and so we stayed in
touch with him and he died in1996, so it's been quite a long
(18:31):
time now.
But he was on sabbatical in NewJersey where we were living at
the time.
So I actually did the lastinterview with him for a little
publication I was working on andwe heard that he had died just
days after, so I could stillhear his voice in my head.
And not long after that I wentto a spiritual director's
(18:52):
training program and people hadheard that I knew Henry Nowlin
because we were talking abouthim in light of his death.
And all these people came andtold me stories like the one I
remember so distinctly was awoman saying she'd really
struggled with infertility andthrough that journey Henry was
the only person through hiswriting that could get to her,
(19:16):
could give her consolation, andI thought what's this Catholic
priest?
who was never married and didn'thave any kids and doesn't know
anything about your life.
Chris Nafis (19:25):
What was it?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (19:26):
that made him sort of her spiritual director.
Out of that came sort of thesense of call, I would say, to
put together the first book ofHenry Nowen's writings on
spiritual direction from a classthat he taught at Yale in
spiritual direction that myhusband, the pack rat, still had
his notes from.
Chris Nafis (19:47):
He still had all his notes and you guys pulled
them out and were able toconsolidate some of his writing
on spiritual directionspecifically.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (19:55):
Yes, and that was the first book and we
worked with the Henry NowenArchives they're at the
University of Toronto and so,with the archivist pulling
together articles he'd writtenand various kinds of things, as
my husband likes to say, wehelped Henry write a few more
books than he would have if hehad enough time.
Chris Nafis (20:14):
What a gift to the world to have more Henry Nowen.
I mean he wrote a lot of books.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (20:17):
He wrote 40.
He wrote 40.
Chris Nafis (20:21):
Well, what was it for the, for the woman, what was
it that was so significant inher spiritual?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (20:26):
well, I just think that, like the comment
that I I referred to by somebodyelse, it's like he knew the
contours of suffering andvulnerability and I think for
this woman that experience wasso isolating and people didn't
understand or she didn't havepeople to talk to.
That somebody who speaks tovulnerability and the uh, he
(20:49):
speaks a lot to the temptationto self-rejection, and so I
think it was that kind of umhumanity.
I mean, that's the thing, henry, I was known to say that he had
learned that what's the mostpersonal is actually the most
universal, not in the particulardetails, but in the existential
(21:10):
connection.
Chris Nafis (21:11):
Yeah, which is how a Catholic priest, male Catholic
priest, can connect withsomeone struggling with
infertility, probably a totallydifferent age than him.
Oh, absolutely, absolutelyPretty absolutely Absolutely.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (21:22):
Pretty much every woman in her twenties and
he would have been a man in hislate sixties if he had lived
Right and I was like what's theconnection?
And it is that touch of beingreally connected to your
humanity which he was.
Chris Nafis (21:37):
And if you read him like you really can feel that
in the writing like you can.
He kind of understandsloneliness, you know, which is
something that I think almosteverybody deals with in today's
age.
Maybe people have always dealtwith loneliness, I don't know.
It seems like it's it's abigger burden on contemporary
people than it has been in thepast and he just knows those
kind of spiritual wrestlings andwrestling with kind of faith
(22:01):
and faithfulness and calling andfinding meaning in the little
things and being present, andjust all those things are such
universal experiences and hejust brings them out so
concisely and so beautifullythat when you read them you feel
like he, like you said, youfeel like he's in your head or
something.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (22:18):
Yeah, he started looking over your
shoulder.
He knows what your life is like.
Chris Nafis (22:21):
Yeah, so what have you taken away as, like, a
spiritual director or someonewho's kind of your work is to do
the same kind of pastoral workthat he's doing in his books?
And you're a writer too, buthow do you like?
What do you take away from that?
What did he teach you?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (22:36):
I think two of the things that I really take
away from Henry.
One is when he did spiritualdirection, it was mostly through
writing.
He did some at the largecommunity and daybreak through
what they called spiritualaccompaniment, and so I love
that word, that you're justreally accompanying somebody and
helping them as they sit in thepresence of God to recognize
(22:57):
what God may be doing, butthey're too close to see it
Right.
And so you join people on thishuman journey and you get to
kind of be the scout to payattention to what others are
bringing.
They're the ones walking thejourney, but sometimes you need
a little friendly distance,somebody else to help you see
things.
And so I think that's true ofspiritual direction, direction
(23:22):
writ large, but now and reallyhad that sense of accompaniment.
Um, you know, the few times Iwas with him one-on-one, there
wasn't too many, it was usuallybetween here or there, it was in
groups.
Uh, one time I remember beingin a car with him and he was a
terrible driver because hepreferred to talk, not drive,
and so I remember just beinglike look at at the.
You know he was taking me atthe train station.
(23:43):
I was like, look at the road.
But what I remember.
He was so curious about me.
I was a mother of two smallkids, working part-time.
My husband was a graduateschool.
There was nothing veryinteresting about me.
He thought I was so interestingand I try to bring that to
people because people areinteresting and he brought that
(24:06):
real.
He saw people as gifts in hispath, somebody to learn
something from.
So I think that enthusiasm forpeople comes from him.
He also in the book that wewrote on spiritual direction
from his writings he starts withsort of identifying persistent
questions when do I belong?
How can I be of service?
Who is God to me?
(24:27):
What is prayer?
Questions that you kind ofcycle through over and over
again who am I?
And I think it's been reallyhelpful to have that in the back
of my mind of saying whatpersistent question am I hearing
from this person?
What is it that they reallyseem to be wrestling with?
Is this an identity thing?
Is this a calling question?
(24:49):
Because often we're thinkingabout a concrete decision to be
made but there may be somebigger flow or bigger question
that's at play, just becausethey're there in our lives.
We need to serve, we need touse our gifts, we need to belong
(25:09):
, we need to have some healingfrom our pain, and so I think
having some awareness thateverybody's got a persistent
question or something, that'sthe big deal right now that
being able to listen with people, for that is a part of the gift
that he has offered.
Chris Nafis (25:29):
Yeah, that's really helpful actually, and I'm
taking this in for myself and myown pastoral work.
You know, for those you know,so, like as a pastor, I'm like
this is what I need to learn howto do better.
You know, for many of thepeople that may be listening to
this not sort of in that rolenecessarily, but are in their
(25:50):
own spiritual journey, trying tofigure out you know, how to
make big decisions, or how tolive a life where they're more
present, or how to break a badhabit or many bad habits, or you
know, or how to break a badhabit or many bad habits, or you
know, apart from maybe justpraying the exam and having
those moments of check-in Likehow would you suggest people go
about fostering a moremeaningful day-to-day spiritual
(26:12):
life?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (26:13):
Yeah, yeah, the core that Henry Nouwen would
put forward is to say if you'regoing to really seek to discern
, you need to be a part of acommunity.
You've got to be engaged withthe discipline of the church,
which you would say is communityChristian people.
You have to be connected to thediscipline of the book.
You've got to read the booksomehow and connect with the
(26:38):
discipline of the heart.
You've got to have some way ofpraying that.
If you're seeking discernmentbut you're not doing those
things, it's sort of like sayingyou want to get stronger but
you have an aversion to liftingweights.
Well, if you don't lift weights, then what are you going to do?
Are you going to do push-ups?
I don't want to do push-ups, Idon't want anything.
Well, you really don't want toget stronger than right, right.
(26:59):
So there are some corepractices and then, from that,
questions of discernment.
You know, he, there's a wholeanother book on discernment.
so if you want that, that yeah,yeah, the book on discernment is
sort of, um, that if you'reattending to your uh you, you
sort of accept the fact that godwishes to be known and wants to
(27:19):
guide you.
And so are you paying attentionto the people on your path.
What are people saying?
Yeah, right, if you actuallywant to do something and you ask
people for their feedback aboutwhat you're good at, or when
they see you falling off thewagon and picking up habits that
(27:41):
have been things you've beentrying to break, what do they
see?
When do you do that?
What are others noticing?
You know they'll help yourecognize your stresses or your
your weak points or whatever.
So what are people saying?
And maybe, what are otherpeople saying?
Are you asking other peoplewho've actually changed that
habit?
You know what.
Are you listening to people inyour path?
Are you asking other peoplewho've actually changed that
(28:02):
habit?
You know what.
Are you listening to people inyour path?
Are you looking for some sortof magic solution that's only
for you, because most of thetime, we're less unique than we
think.
Chris Nafis (28:14):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like so many of us are just
bent.
We're so stubborn, we don'twant to do the thing that
everyone tells us to do.
We want to find our own path.
We want to do it differentlyand sometimes like getting over
ourselves a bit and just doingthe thing.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (28:27):
That's right.
Chris Nafis (28:28):
Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (28:31):
That's discerning people in your path,
sort of what time is it both inyour life?
Is this a realistic time foryou to do that thing Right?
Sometimes people are like Iwant to.
You know, run off and join thecircus.
And then he said you got threekids right.
How many do you have?
Three boys?
Yeah.
Maybe, if you tell me you wantto run off and join the circus,
(28:51):
I'll say what time is it in yourlife?
Chris, I already live in thecircus Dr Laird, so but to sort
of say there are times in ourlives and there are sometimes
yearnings that will come to passor there'll be a moment for
that.
But is it now?
Is it too soon for that?
So, paying attention to thetime in your life, the people in
your path, you know, some ofthose kinds of discernment
(29:14):
questions really do help be abit of a sorting hat.
And it's not magic like thesorting hat is in Harry Potter.
It's really discerning.
Sorting because that's whatreally discerning is sorting
with the love of God, to figureout what's the next step for me,
Reminds me of.
Chris Nafis (29:34):
we went through some of the wisdom literature a
few years ago and I rememberpreaching on one of the passages
in Proverbs where, you know,wisdom is personified and it's
like wisdom is crying out to youfrom the street corners, it's
calling after you all over theplace.
But if you won't listen, youknow, if you're not going to do
the hard work of actuallylistening to the wisdom that's
around you, from yourexperiences, from being
(29:56):
reflective on what you've beenthrough, from the people around
you who want to speak life andwisdom into your life and kind
of taking the time to engage inthose practices.
Yeah, like you said, it's liketrying to get strong without
working out.
You know just probably notgoing to work.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (30:15):
No, and I find that sometimes in spiritual
direction, people will comeback and keep asking the same
kind of thing and sometimes theyjust have to keep talking to
themselves until they actuallyhear themselves.
But sometimes it's the role ofthe director is to say you keep
asking the same question, butevery time you commit to doing
something, you don't take thatstep.
What's that about?
(30:35):
Yeah, right, because sometimesdiscernment isn't easy and
sometimes the next steps that wetake there'll be a sense of
rightness.
But that doesn't mean that it'snot going to be without effort.
Chris Nafis (30:48):
Yeah, yeah, cause sometimes the question is, what
do I do?
And sometimes, like you, knowwhat you're supposed to do.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (30:54):
What other support do you need?
Or do you just are you readyfor a gentle nudge?
Yeah, yeah.
Chris Nafis (31:01):
How do you know?
So I mean, this is a question II'm trying to learn more for
myself.
You know, like I feel liketoday again I don't know if this
is an issue for today or ifthis is an issue of all time but
I feel like it's really hard toeven talk to close friends
about like hard things, to kindof be a little confrontational
in seeing patterns that youthink, like this person keeps
(31:25):
telling me they're frustratedabout this and I can see what
they're doing and it's notworking.
But you know, it feels likewe're always supposed to just be
always encouraging one anotherand always kind of affirming one
another, and I think there'ssomething beautiful about being
in someone's corner and alwayshaving their back.
But sometimes you know, we haveto be able to tell someone
(31:45):
something hard that they don'twant to hear.
You know, I think that isprobably the role of a spiritual
director more than most.
How do you do that, like, howdo you do it gracefully and
lovingly and how do you do it ina way that can be heard and not
rejected?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (32:00):
Yeah, yeah, I think that sometimes it's
easier in a spiritual directionrelationship than it is in a
friendship, because people areintentionally coming to you for
that.
I tend to offer hard thingswith a little encouragement as
well not be too blunt.
But the folks I work witharound here will say sometimes
in the morning, if you've nothad your coffee, it comes out
(32:22):
really straight, really blunt,it's like whoa.
So that can happen.
But I think often you just sortof say we've talked around this
and do you really want a directresponse on this?
And if they say yes and usuallypeople do, because they've been
(32:44):
coming to you to try to sortthings out and then you say you
may not like this, but I'm goingto just tell it to you straight
, I'm going to say it in as kindof a tone as I can.
But I have to be really honest.
I think most of the time peoplereceive that as a good if
there's a relationship of trustand usually that is you don't do
(33:07):
that early on because youwouldn't know what to say early
on.
You have to know somebody for awhile and they have to know
that.
If they don't hear it that wayor they want to disregard what
you say, that that's theirprivilege too, the person who's
in spiritual direction or in anyrelationship.
The agency belongs to them.
People don't have to do what Ithink is right they don't, they
(33:28):
don't, and sometimes they domuch better.
Chris Nafis (33:34):
Sometimes they override you in there, sometimes
they actually know themselves.
Yeah, but I think that's helpfulto be able to give that word,
because sometimes it reallytakes courage to say something
that you know you need to sayright, but to be able to be
courageous and say know you needto say right, but to be able to
be courageous and say the thingyou need to say, but then also
to let it go and say, all right,I've put it out there, I've
(33:54):
kind of done my part in this,and now it's up to the person to
kind of find their own way.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (34:00):
And I will love you, whether you receive
this or not.
Yeah, you receive this or not.
Yeah, I just feel like in thecontext, I'm sort of speaking as
if I'm speaking to someone, butin the context of this
relationship and this commitment, I need to say this, and what
you do with it is yours well, onthe flip side of that, like as
someone who maybe receives aword of uh, challenge or um
(34:25):
confrontation, you, how do youreceive it?
Chris Nafis (34:28):
Well, because I feel like there's different ways
to receive it poorly.
One, you know, I thinksometimes we tend to beat
ourselves up and be sohypercritical.
Someone says a word of slightnon-approval and then we just
beat ourselves to death.
And other times we're we're insuch denial about the reality
that we just can't hear it.
You, um, you know, how do wefoster a kind of a presence and
(34:51):
a being that is open to thatkind of wisdom?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (34:55):
I think the daily practices are a part of
that, right.
If you're learning how to bereflective, if you're learning
how to pause at the end of theday and look back, you'll'll see
things.
They're like oof, not so great.
I blew right past that person.
That was a cruel word, oof,right.
So if you're in a reflectivemode and you are willing to see
(35:18):
those places, in the smallthings and sort of in the
privacy of your own being, thenlearning how to take feedback
begins to be a part of yourassumption about life.
There are things that I can'tsee at the time.
There are things that I'm tooclose to see and that this
trusted person who prays for meand who loves me, if they're
(35:41):
going to say this, then I'll atleast have to go think about it,
right?
And I do think that a goodspiritual director will know
somebody to know whether theyerr on the side of scrupulosity
or on the side of you know,small criticisms are going to go
beat themselves up.
You're going to be very carefuland to say I know you.
(36:03):
You might take this word and gohome and use it as some sort of
way to you know, beat yourselfup with.
Let's not take that tact, youknow, if you start to feel like
you can beat yourself up, isthere another way to think about
how can you hold that Right?
How could you hold thisinformation?
Because you're helping theperson not only hear the
information but to sort offigure out what to do with it.
(36:25):
If there's somebody else who'slike easy to just sort of
dismiss that they don't likestuff, and if they hear a
negative thing, they're justgoing to say, ah, she's just
full of it, right, I don't needto listen to her.
It took a lot for us to get tothis.
You know, will you make acommitment to think about it
(36:45):
tonight?
Take 10 minutes to think aboutthis, right?
So if you know somebody thesekinds of things, if somebody's
really hard on themselves or alittle too easy on themselves,
you usually have some sense ofthat.
Chris Nafis (36:58):
Yeah, so you can kind of adjust the.
Yeah, I think we all kind of dothat just naturally with
friends.
We know people who havedifferent tendencies and we can
kind of adjust our communicationin mind of that.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Lai (37:14):
Encouragement's more fun.
Chris Nafis (37:15):
Encouragement is absolutely more fun.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (37:20):
I actually.
I would also say I have aphilosophy.
I think it came out of some ofmy graduate work in picking a
methodology I worked.
It came out of some of mygraduate work in picking a
methodology.
I worked with appreciative,inquiry kinds of methodology and
it's sort of looking at asituation, a person, an
institution and trying toidentify where is this thing
growing.
You know, it's sort of like ifyou see a plant in a room, it's
(37:44):
going to grow to the light.
How is this person growing?
How can you be a part of that?
And a plant can grow andflourish and bloom.
Even if there's dead branchesover here.
You don't have to try to makeeverything tidy.
And so in trying to help peoplegrow in the direction of where
(38:15):
God's energy is found or wherethey come to life, it's easier
to help people grow and asthey're growing, then sometimes
the snipping away of some ofthese other dead branches
doesn't matter so much.
But, if people are in a seasonwhen they don't feel there's
been any greenness or any growthor life's been so hard and I
think encouragements is oftentend that way, you know, lean
into that yeah yeah, yeah, it'snot so like in our context we
(38:36):
have a lot of people that arevery they're in crisis a lot,
you know, in life and sometimespeople need both.
Chris Nafis (38:44):
They need encouragement because it can be
so disheartening to experiencehomelessness, for example, or to
struggle with addiction andhave relapses.
It's so tempting to justdespair and give up and I think
we need that encouragement.
But then also, I think peopleoften need to be challenged too,
because in the you know, in theharsher experiences of the
(39:07):
world, you know, we end updeveloping a lot of bad habits
because of our sort of limitedresources, limited ability to
cope.
You know like we pick up thingsthat are unhelpful and that are
kind of continuing to cycle usin, and I don't know you've been
in those contexts a lot.
Do you have any advice for achurch like ours as we try to
(39:29):
find our way towardsdiscipleship?
You know a bit about our church.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (39:32):
Yeah, I do, I do, and I love your church.
I love the one-room context ofyou know, come and bring all the
things, whether you need toplug in your phone or you need
food, or it's a rainy night orit's worship time or whatever.
You know, I think, and this isbasic stuff.
(39:58):
But when people know you reallycare, that's job one right.
How do you get through ahorrible day?
Somebody offers some humanityto you.
And then the long-term thingsit's accountability and knowing
that most people mess up a fewtimes before they get it right.
(40:20):
All that kind of love andcompassion serves well.
But if people are caught in thedepths of multiple challenges,
they need multiple people.
It's the mosaic of care.
I think that helps, and aspiritual director can help with
a piece of it.
You need the social worker andyou need the clinician and you
(40:43):
need the housing advocate.
There's no easy solution tothat, but I think encouraging
people to sort of say this isyour, your team, your group, and
it's not just to help you, butthat you are you're.
You're a gift to this group too.
(41:05):
Everybody here needs to give,and and you need to give.
Where are you offeringsomething back, buddy?
Chris Nafis (41:12):
Yes, right, yeah, for sure.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (41:16):
And I think that's when we mentioned the
L'Arche community before.
One of the things I reallylearned from L'Arche is that
it's a with and not one personcan't be on the receiving end
all the time and one person orgroups of people being on the
giving end, because that'swarped, it's with and that's
hard sometimes for people whoare struggling so hard to just
(41:38):
survive.
But I think when that istouched, every once in a while
you see the gift in somebody andthey get to offer it it when
they've just felt like they havenothing to offer.
That is, in my experience,often when the growth begins.
You know it's that growingtoward delight, but you've got
(41:58):
to have your switch turned onFor sure, and I think I mean
that was so like our church wasfor those.
Chris Nafis (42:04):
Many of you who maybe listen to this know this
because you're part of thechurch.
But we were kind of born out ofthis desire to get over this
one-way relationship of like wecome downtown and feed you
that's right and you receive,and to say how can we be
brothers and sisters?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (42:17):
in.
Chris Nafis (42:17):
Christ together and how can we serve alongside one
another and be served alongsideone another.
And I think you know there'sbeen seasons in the life of our
church we've done that reallywell and others where it's been
a bit of a struggle.
But I think keeping that dooropen, inviting people to serve
and encouraging people to stepinto that invitation I mean, in
some ways, you know, havingsomeone volunteer for something
(42:43):
is more full of life and growthand spiritual richness than any
kind of like blessing you cangive from your word of mouth or
anything the community can do tosupport you is to offer that
chance, because there's so muchdignity and empowerment in that.
So hopefully we can continue onthat legacy and pick it up in
areas that it's kind of droppedoff for us.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (43:04):
Henry Nowen at the end of his life, when he
went to L'Arche, one of thethings he began to recognize was
that, rather than he keptgetting big speaking engagements
, but he said, rather thanannouncing the people at L'Arche
, he was going to take peoplewith him.
So he took, at the last coupleyears of his life, all of his
speaking engagements.
He took one of the core members, one of the people with
(43:25):
disabilities, with him speakingengagements.
He took one of the core members, one of the people with
disabilities, with him and theywould steal the show and
afterwards no one would rememberwhat Henry said.
And it bothered him because hewas used to being sort of people
hanging on every word, and nowthey weren't necessarily.
They were thinking about whatBill said or they were thinking
about what the core members said, and he recognized that that
(43:49):
was also.
The call of his spiritualreality at that time of his life
was to um, you know, he said hewanted to announce the poor and
lift up the voices that um werevoiceless and one of the ways
to do that was to take somebodywith a different voice with him
and then to get over himselfRight and step aside, right Step
(44:10):
aside and let the spotlightchange, and let the deep wisdom
that often came in a packagethat people would never have
listened to if he wasn'tstanding next to them, let that
be God's messenger.
And it was a big ego learning.
Chris Nafis (44:28):
Yeah, I can see how that would be a challenge, and
I mean, someone like Nowen is sotransparent that he would share
it with everybody else in waysthat are helpful for us.
So you know, I've taken a lotof your time here.
I really appreciate you coming.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (44:42):
Thank you for asking.
I like talking about thesethings.
Chris Nafis (44:44):
Yeah, for those who haven't read much henry now,
and is there any book or booksthat you would recommend as like
an entryway into?
Dr. Rebecca Laird (45:02):
the depth of his.
Well, I think everybody hastheir.
That has the summary of hisvision, right?
You know, henry wrote a lot ofbooks but the themes are pretty
persistent and once he began towrite about our belovedness,
that that's the core of ouridentity.
That really articulates almosteverything else he's talking
(45:27):
about, and so I think theprodigal son probably speaks to
that one as well we have.
The ones I worked on wereSpiritual Direction, spiritual
Formation, and one of thereasons that book has been
helpful is it has a lot of artin it, because now it was a
great lover of art.
He traveled with a little iconof Rublev's Old Testament
(45:52):
trinity and he loved Van Gogh.
So almost everywhere he wenthe'd get sunflowers and put them
in a vase.
He needed beautiful images andthings around him.
So that brings some of thevisual aspects of spiritual
formation, because spiritualformation needs to have some
embodiment and it needs to useyour senses and not just your
(46:15):
brain.
So Nouwen's books that do bringsome of that together and that
spiritual formation is one ofthose.
He's written some books.
He wrote a book on icons Beholdthe Beauty of the Lord.
He's written some books.
He wrote a book on icons Beholdthe Beauty of the Lord,
describing how praying with anicon is not an idolatry, but
(46:35):
it's praying as if there's awindow to God in front of you
and it's beautiful so he looksthrough some of these ancient
icons, so he had differentseasons.
Chris Nafis (46:47):
Yeah.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (46:48):
And it depends on whether you like the
sort of more interfaith earlyexploration or the psychological
engagement times or whether hissort of refined time at L'Arche
where he really understood theinterior life and community.
Chris Nafis (47:03):
Yeah, I even wrote a book of his on fundraising.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (47:06):
It is a spirituality, fundraising.
If I have to read something onmany things.
I even wrote a book of his onfundraising.
It is a spirituality offundraising, yeah.
Chris Nafis (47:08):
If I have to read something on fundraising, which
I think I have to do, might aswell read Henry Don's to some
other person, but it's deeplyrelational.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (47:14):
Yeah, it is.
I mean, that's what it's allabout.
Is people need to give?
Chris Nafis (47:18):
Yeah, Well, thank you.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (47:32):
Any to say before we close it out.
Just thank you for theopportunity.
I just think that I love whatyou do at Living Water and I
know that anybody who's tryingto look for the dignity of God
and the gift of God in others,particularly those who wear, as
Mother Teresa would say,sometimes the distrusting
disguise you know I'm all aboutthat, and Henry was too, so I
think that's why he resonatedwith me.
So fun conversation, Thank you.
Chris Nafis (47:51):
Well, thank you for your time, for all your
encouragement over the years andfree work.
Absolutely All right.
Okay, we'll catch you next time.
Thanks for listening all youcurrent people and yeah, thanks
again Dr Lange.
Dr. Rebecca Laird (48:04):
My pleasure, my pleasure, my pleasure.
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