Life Journey from a Reader’s Perspective — Book: Life of the Beloved
If I have to pick one book from all that I’ve read in 2022 and forget the rest, it will be Life of the Beloved.
That year I was going through many life transitions, especially turning 30 and leaving a community where I felt a deep sense of belonging to a place filled with uncertainties. Through that time, one of my good friends gifted me Life of the Beloved because this book helped him go through a life transition when he graduated from college. Thus he wishes this book may tremendously help me as well.
Before I read this book, I had already thought much about the significance of my life. As it turns towards a critical junction regarding my age, I expected more establishment to prove my significance. This expectation constantly drives me to think about titles and possessions I don’t have but should have in life according to the social norm and comparison with surrounding people. Therefore I constantly felt depressed and self-loathing, while at least I was surrounded by people who knew me and deeply cared for me, which gave me some significance. When the time came that I needed to move to a new city across the country for some personal reason, I was in despair to leave the beloved community behind and expose my insecure self to a place I had yet to know.
This book, indeed, was a blessing to my soul. The greatest lesson I learned from Henry Nouwen is to respond to our brokenness, which is to ‘face it squarely and befriend it (p.92)’. Because ‘the first step to healing is not a step away from the pain, but a step toward it. When brokenness is, in fact, just as intimate a part of our being as our chosenness and our blessedness, we have to dare to overcome our fear and become familiar with it. Yes, we have to find the courage to embrace our own brokenness, to make our most feared enemy into a friend, and to claim it as an intimate companion.”
This refreshed my understanding of my lack and brokenness in life. I used to attribute them to my incompleteness and not measuring up according to some surrounding expectations and standards. But once I start to tell myself my own lack and pain points to my uniqueness and most intimate individuality(p.87), thus reminds me of my unique chosenness and blessedness.
It took me years to realize it’s unrealistic to have everything and be everything, which was a pursuit of life in my 20s. During my student days, I wanted to be good at science and math, and also be artistic and creative, and well-read in many humanity subjects, and at the same time, live up to my calling after I adopted the Christian faith. This desire drove me to study across various majors and subjects, read widely, and spend significant time at Church. But because of my lack of singular focus on one area and my status as a foreigner, entering postgrad life has been particularly challenging. And because of this struggle, I cannot contribute to the community as my other friends do.
Looking back, my insecurity in my late 20s came from my victim mentality, blaming my unfortunate circumstances and things I don’t have, but others do. But blaming external circumstances does not change anything besides consuming more time and energy that I could have spent somewhere more productive mentally and emotionally. Until I started to acknowledge my fear, insecurities, envy, and other negative emotions, I started having the courage to face the trouble and speak it out. I found the power to discern where I could change the circumstance with my effort and help from my friends.
By facing my brokenness, even if it’s not so significant, instead of dwelling on the regrets I might have done differently, I learned to own up to my own decisions from the past and to appreciate the blessing it has given me. Despite different frustration regarding taking off my career the way I hoped, I’ve stayed in the same community for a decade. I’ve met many friends and mentors from various regions nationwide who support me through various trials. Because of my interest, academic and professional experience across multiple disciplines, from design and art to tech and science, and now to Business and accounting. I can converse with many people regarding their passion and experiences. Additionally, I can explain ideas and concepts to people using the vocabulary they can understand in a narrative and illustrative manner. Recently, I also started to embrace the wide range of knowledge and experience from the past, find the hidden connections behind it, and share my stories and findings with more people through writing.
This is precisely what Henry Nouwen said “The great secret of the spiritual life, the life of the Beloved Sons and Daughters of God, is that everything we live, be it gladness or sadness, joy or pain, health or illness, can all be part of the journey toward the full realization of our humanity (p.96)” and “the great spiritual call of the Beloved Children of God is to pull their brokenness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing (p.97).” Thus “joy and sorrow are no longer each other’s opposites, but have become the two sides of the same desire to grow to the fullness of the Beloved (p.99).”
After I befriended much of my fear and anxiety of my own lack and brokenness and placed it under blessing, I discovered how much I can give, not because of my material wealth and external talent. As Nouwen mentioned, the greatest gift we have to offer is our own joy of living, our own inner peace, our own silence and solitude, our own sense of well-being. (p.113) I can become a source of strength to many younger ones troubled by their broken realities. In the end, I hope everyone can testify to what Nouwen put towards the end of the book “Life is a God-given opportunity to become who we are, to affirm our own true spiritual nature, claim our truth, appropriate and integrate the reality of our being, but, most of all, to say “Yes” to the One who calls us the Beloved.”
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6–7
