Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2006

THE WOUNDED HEALER

“The painful irony is that the minister, who wants to touch the center of men’s lives, finds himself on the periphery; often pleading in vain for admission….He never seems to be where the action is.” I wonder if this says more about Henri Nouwen than it does about the minister’s involvement in critical and crisis situations. “ The minister, the story tells us, is sitting among the poor, binding his/her wounds one at a time, waiting for the moment when he/she will be needed. The minister is called to be the wounded healer, the one who must look after his/her wounds and at the same time be prepared to heal the wounds of others.” --- Henri Nouwen. In his article titled “Wounded Healers”, Thomas Maeder quotes a child of psychiatrists (both parents): “I Think my parents were crazy, I think that, somehow, being psychiatrists kept them in line. They used it as a protection. They’re both quite crazy, but their jobs give them really good cover.” It is no secret that the so-called “helping...