November 2012 The Road to Daybreak A Spiritual Journey by Henri J M Nouwen

Human Grief Continue from ...... Real human grief means allowing the illusion of immortality to die in us. When those whom we love with an "endless love" die, something also has to die within us. If we do not allow this to happen, we will lose touch with reality, our lives will become increaingly artificial, and we will lose our human capacity for compassion. The national grief for the death of the seven astronauts will be fruitful if it helps us to die to our vainglory and our national desire to be the best and the most powerful at all costs, and stimulates us to search for a way of peace not dependent on military superiority. Christa McAuliffe stepped into the Challenger in the hope of teaching her children something new about the universe in which they live. The real challenge now will be to help these children understand and accept without fear the brokenness and mortality of their parents, their teachers, their heroes, and themselves. If this tragedy gradually helps them to love themselves and the adults who guide them as precious, extremely vulnerable, mortal human beings, they may become peacemakers for whom solidarity and compassion are greater gifts than technical genius and the ability to dominate others. A Stern Guide This afternoon I went downtown to pay another visit to the Munster. Together with a middle-aged woman, I took a guided tour. It was a wonderful experience. The guide, a retired civil servant, not only told us the history of the church, the names of the architects and artists, and the meaning of the statues, paintings, and altars, he also viewed the tour as an occasion to preach. He saw it as his task to convert us and bring us to prayer. As he showed us the majestic portal on which both the saved and the condemned are vividly portrayed, he said, "Let us pray that we end up in the right group." As he showed us a large tapestry of Melchizedek, he recounted elaborately the Old Testament story and its eucharistic application. As he explained the New Testament scenes portrayed in stone or glass or on canvas, he quoted long passages from the Gospels by heart. In between the art treasures he demonstrated to us the ugly wooden contemporary confessionals with lights to indicate if they are free or occupied, and exhorted us to go to confesstion at least once every two weeks. At times he expressed his political preferences. In the two "emperor chapels" with splendid stained glass windows portraying the powerful Habsburgers, Maximilian I, Phillip I, Charles V, and Ferdinand I, he said, "Today they don't teach schoolchildren about these great men. No they teach them about Marx and Lenin. But we had better keep thinking about these Christians."

- To Be Continued - © Copyright Shalom 2012. All rights reserved.