Henri Nouwen & Fred Rogers were friends, writing back & forth to one another over the years. Finding this out was such a joy for me, particularly given my love and appreciation for both men and their work.At one point, Fred sent Henri a particularly discouraging article that had been written about him and the ministry that Fred had with young children. Words like these, attacking Fred’s character and questioning his intentions, were deeply wounding to him, and given the propensity of his friend, Henri, to speak openly of human pain, suffering, and healing, I can only imagine that it would be have been altogether natural to seek comfort from him.
This is a part of Henri’s reply.
“I read the article you sent me and can very well understand how much that must have hurt you. It must be really painful to be confronted with a total misunderstanding of your mission and your spiritual intentions.It is these little persecutions within the church that hurt the most. I simply hope that you are not too surprised by them. They come and will keep coming precisely when you do something significant for the Kingdom. It has always struck me that the real pain comes often from the people from whom we expected real support. It was Jesus’ experience and the experience of all the great visionaries in the Church, and it continues to be the experience of many who are committed to Jesus.
I don’t think it makes much sense to argue with the writer of this article. He speaks from a very different plane and will not be open to your explanations. Some of the criticisms we simply have to suffer and see as invitations to enter deeper into the heart of Jesus. I won’t send you some of the reviews I get of my books, but some are not very different from the tone of this piece. So I certainly feel a unique solidarity with you.
Let us pray for each other, that we remain faithful and not become bitter and that we continue to return to the center where we can find the joy and peace that is not of this world.”
It’s beyond tough to be misunderstood or wrongfully attacked, but for what it’s worth I have always found when deeply wounded, especially by those you’d least expect it, the best words I’ve found the courage to share are NO WORDS AT ALL. . .and for one literally talks in his sleep, well. . .there’s no words for that either. . . .
SO IF IT’S EASIER SAID THAN DONE. . .MAKE IT HARDER TO SAY AND EASIER TO DO (KINDNESS)
. . .YOU’LL NEVER BE MISQUOTED!
JUST A MOMENT: WALK THE LINE
We usually have no problems whatsoever walking the line if it happens to be a 4 inch line on the ground, BUT a 1 inch wide tight rope thin line 160 feet above Niagara Falls, well. . .we still have no trouble volunteering to walk that line or riding that line in a wheelbarrow. In fact, I’ll be the first one to VOLUNTEER YOU or SOMEONE ELSE to walk that line and others that might bring me danger, even if it means going from one significant point to another important place one treacherous step at a time.
SEE WHAT YOU SEE; HEAR WHAT YOU HEAR; NOTICE!
SEE. SEE. SEE HEAR. HEAR. HEAR THE INVISIBLE IN FRINT OF YOU
Meeting Ray, even via YouTube was humbling. . .
In Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Ray exudes kindness.
One choice tidbit of his wisdom: “Life isn’t out there. . . . Life is what you do in here [tapping his temple] with what’s out there.”
(My thanks to Ray and interviewer/photographer Christopher Ward, via Model Strangers.)
A T T E N D I N G
It’s the Pope‘s funeral tomorrow and I won’t be attending and most likely I won’t be watching it live. I may check in on some of the details and some of the highlights later in the day, but the honoring and the celebration of somebody’s life isn’t so much in attending their services as much as in attending to the responses of their actions in you that have begun and now continue because of the service they inspired, created and made possible not so much for you, but because of you. To live the message of somebody’s life is really the ultimate act of celebrating their life. To remember somebody that way not only keeps them close to you but also makes you a better person. So no, I won’t be attending the Pope’s service and attending tomorrow and I most likely won’t watch but I’ll do everything I can to not just listen and learn from his message, but to keep it alive just by simply sharing it~~JOIN ME JOINING HIM
Sometimes a single life can become a stretching ripple that travels far past any intended shore. Of the billions of souls that have ever lived on Earth – there will never be another one like this man.
May I find the courage to overcome my ego in me to embrace call to try to become an agent of compassion during whatever time I have left here on this planet.
As a cradle Catholic, I have had my struggles keeping myself tethered to the faith I was handed at birth. Frances was one of the strongest gravitational pulls keeping me in loose orbit. I pray that the next leader who is chosen carries kindness into the role.
We will miss you, Papa Frances.
he never raised his voice— he just helped the world unclench a little. he wasn’t a fist. ~ his life wasn’t a shout to obey. he was an open palm. ~ his life was a soft call to be compassionate. he didn’t light bonfires. ~ he reminded us of our light. he didn’t lead with power— he just kept choosing mercy. of course, as a soul who was entangled with humanity he made mistakes, but his kindness was never one of them. now his absence feels like a window closed somewhere deep inside me— and I didn’t realize how much light had been coming through. oh Pope Francis, may the perpetual light shine upon you ~ john roedel
When you take the BEST of someone and make THAT a part of yourself, you instantaneously become a much better person and in today’s world, being a Better Person, person to person, is something we all could be become Better. . . .
JUST A MOMENT: GETTING MAPPED
Have you ever felt off the map or that you just couldn’t find your place or that there is no map that you literally somehow, someway have gone beyond it? A lot of times we feel like that especially in our current state of, well, unrest and so much division anywhere and everywhere, you look and sometimes it doesn’t even feel like there has been a map or that there is one that gets us to where a place of security, a place of safety a place of Hope; a place where we don’t feel so isolated or alone, yeah, sometimes it feels like there is no map that leads to any kind of any direction. No up. No down. No all around. And so we find ourselves, well, not alone, because maybe the best way to find direction is defined with each other,
looking in different ways for the same thing. . . ?
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
FINDING YOUR WAY
DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN
STAYING IN THE LINES
OR EVEN
USING A MAP
AT ALL. . .
COMING HOME
Holidays always have a way of spelling
H-O -M- E
in all of the ways we not only know but experience it best. . .
Pssssssssssssssssssst:
The best Holidays are the ones that
A R E N ‘ T
but we MAKE
(often on the spot)
without any specific date on a calendar
H O M E
KEEP BRINGING IT
KEEP BEING IT
KEEP GIFTING IT
JUST A MOMENT: CHRISTMAS ON EASTER
CHRISTMAS on EASTER?
Absurd?
Blasphemy?
Unheard of?
Ludacris?
. . .right on time?
Christmas really never means anything, in fact, it probably doesn’t even exist unless Easter happens and gives it its own special definition. . . and in just a moment, adds colorful splashes of light on our traffic laden dim and darkened paths. . . .
FASTEST MOST POWERFUL PRAYER
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
the courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time.
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as he did, the sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.
Trusting that he will make all things right
if I surrender to His will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
and supremely happy with Him forever.
Do you have a
GO TO PRAYER. . .
one that is the
FASTEST MOST POWERFUL PRAYER IN YOUR WORLD. . . ?
DOES IT WORK?
Is it
E
F
F
E
C
T
I
V
E (SOMETIMES)
THE MOST PROFOUNDLY
PROFANE
IS . . . .)
MORE THAN A “SOMETIMES” STORY
Sometimes A STORY is so much bigger and better than THE STORY. . .HERE’S PROOF:
Tom Hanks was in his trailer on the set of “News of the World” in 2020 when his assistant walked in, holding a folded note. The message was simple: a man named James Mallory, a former high school teacher from Ohio, was dying of pancreatic cancer. His daughter, Emily, had reached out through multiple fan forums and Twitter, hoping someone might get a message to Hanks. Her father’s final wish was to hear Forrest Gump’s voice one last time.
The request hit Hanks hard. He paused, reread the note, then quietly asked his assistant to find a contact number. Within an hour, he was holding a phone, listening to it ring on speaker in a small hospice room 2,000 miles away. Emily had no idea if the message had gotten through, and when her phone lit up with a California number, she almost ignored it. But something made her answer.
“Hello, is this Emily Mallory?” the familiar voice asked.
She froze. “Yes?”
“This is Tom Hanks. I heard your dad wants to talk to Forrest Gump. Is he around?”
The room went silent. Her mother gasped. Nurses paused in the hallway. Emily rushed to her father’s bedside and gently placed the phone near his ear. James was weak, he hadn’t spoken much in days. But when Hanks shifted into Forrest’s voice and said, “Hi, James… Mama always said life is like a box of chocolates,” a faint smile spread across the old man’s lips.
Tears streamed down Emily’s face. Her father, barely able to speak, mouthed, “Thank you.”
Hanks continued in Forrest’s slow Southern drawl, weaving personal comfort with signature Gump wisdom. “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floatin’ around accidental-like on a breeze… but I think maybe, both is happenin’ at the same time.”
For a few precious minutes, James was no longer a cancer patient in a hospital bed. He was listening to his favorite character, the one who helped him through his divorce, who kept him company through nights of grading papers alone, who made him laugh even when life seemed unforgiving.
What made the moment even more powerful was that Hanks never slipped out of character. He addressed James as Forrest would have, comforting him not as a celebrity to a fan, but as a kind-hearted friend on a park bench. James held Emily’s hand, a tear rolling down his temple, and whispered, “Best day… ever.”
Emily would later describe that moment as “a miracle in slow motion.” Her father passed away quietly the next morning, still smiling.
Hanks never mentioned the call publicly. No social media post, no press release. Emily shared the story on a grief support page a month later. A user on Reddit reposted it, and from there, it spread, touching thousands who had grown up with Forrest Gump’s voice in their ears and kindness in their hearts.
A hospice nurse who had witnessed the call said she’d never seen a patient’s face change so quickly. “He was so tired, so far gone. But when he heard Forrest Gump, something lit up inside him.”
Emily keeps the phone recording to this day. She plays it sometimes, not just to hear her father’s last conversation, but to remind herself what simple kindness from a stranger, no matter how famous, can mean to someone facing the end.
In the quietest room, a voice from a film brought peace where medicine could not.
You just never quite know what can happen when
WORDS. . .
YOUR WORDS
put on some flesh
and walk around in someone’s neighborhood
but NOW
is a really good time to
F I N D
O U T
JUST A MOMENT: WHEN RAIN BRINGS MORE THAN DROPS
We usually know pretty quickly just what kind of people we are; not too many really chooses to be rainy day people, but when we’re getting pelted, actually when we’re getting soaked, and we don’t have an umbrella to protect us or worse yet, getting stuck out in those elements with a flat tire or a broken down car and we’re just getting saturated, we seldom realize that in that cold dampness, the rain brings more than just big wet splattered drops; it provides growth–blooms. It provides a flowering that we’d rather sometimes not have because of what it takes to make the flower bloom. . .yeah, so what kind of a person are you: one that recognizes THAT or one who hopes against IT. . .always?
When I was a little kid, I used to ask the question: “Why can’t it just rain at night when it doesn’t affect anybody?” I remember the question was asked back at me, “What about the people that have to work at night?”
Well, we might all concludingly sigh, “Well, the rain affects everybody!”
TRUTH: We would just rather not have it, but most always want what it produces. . .
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