Finally, I have time to read "Out of Solitude" by Henri Nouwen, a book recommended by a friend long long time ago…

It talks about 3 meditations: out of solitude, with care, and in expectation. (Let me summarize them one by one...)

1. Out of Solitude:

"To live a Christian life means to live in the world without being of it."

According to Nouwen, the problem with being of this world is that "we become what the world makes us". This actually resembles what Fr. Ching said in GT'06, that the view of this world teaches us to think about ourselves in terms of our accomplishments and contributions. If we get high grades, we're smart; if we perform well on our jobs, we excel. Otherwise, we're nothing.

Consequently, we've sold our soul and identity to the grade-givers of this world. (*sigh*... how true...)

Everyday, we must strive to live up to the expectations of others, and before we know it, we've become restless and end up in despair, because we've made ourselves prisoners of this success-oriented world.

Now the first meditation Nouwen proposes is: to find a life in solitude to balance our life in action. Because only in solitude, we can listen to our Heavenly father, who sets us free before we ask and who loves us because of who we are, not because of what we can do.

This meditation is not taught by someone of this world, but demonstrated by Jesus our Lord.

In the bible, "in the middle of sentences loaded with action—healing suffering people, casting out devils, responding to impatient disciples, traveling from town to town and preaching from synagogue to synagogue—we find these quiet words: In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there. (Mark 1:35)"

We need a lonely place, just like Jesus, to pray and let our inner freedom to strengthen with the healing words from above, and not be preoccupied by the countless worldly tasks with our usefulness. (My first impression on this is that Jesus was quite occupied too, but I suppose the difference is that his solitary prayers strengthen his will to carry out the mission from above, therefore he never get distracted by worldly matters... unlike us, we easily get blinded by worldly matters...)

I especially like the short story at the end:

A carpenter and his apprentice were walking together through a large forest. And when they came across a tall, huge, gnarled, old, beautiful oak tree, the carpenter asked his apprentice: "Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so gnarled, so old and beautiful?"

The apprentice looked at his master and said: "No... why?"

"Well," the carpenter said, "because it is useless. If it had been useful it would have been cut long ago and made into tables and chairs, but because it is useless it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit in its shade and relax."

  It reminds me of 莊子's philosophy:

「巧者勞而知者憂，無能者無所求，飽食而敖游，汎若不系之舟，虛而敖游者也！」