Reflection on Making All Things New: II

a)    All these other things
                 In this session the author profoundly reflects struggles and problems in life. The chapter clearly portrait how people think, speak, feel, and act in order to bring awareness to spiritual dryness. ‘Filled’ and ‘Unfilled’ was the best two words to descript our lives by critically looking at how we live our live. The word ‘Filled’ represent the most obvious characteristics of our daily lives. It literally means ‘Busy’ in this book.  We start our day with busyness and end with busyness. Busyness seems to be a world-wide-web. We are busy and yet always falling behind schedule. However, it is abnormal not to be busy. The author said ‘being busy has become a status symbol.1’ People tend to think that being busy and being important as the same thing.
                 Our occupation occupies everything in life and it becomes the center of our identity. On the other hand, the society where we live in now is very production-orientated. However, in the end of carrier everybody become nobody and we need to ask ‘who are we when we no longer have an occupation?’ People are not only occupied by their occupation but also preoccupied by many ‘ifs.’ Jesus said ‘do not worry for tomorrow’ and yet we are preoccupied by many ifs. To be up to date in many things create restlessness and adds many fabricated preoccupations to the already existing ones.2 Therefore, our hearts and minds are filled with our occupations and preoccupations. However, many things that preoccupied our hearts and minds are just false expectations and contrived needs. They occupied our lives so much that we left very little time or no time for the Spirit of God to renewing our lives. The word ‘Unfilled’ highlighted the time when we started to question ourselves. When we are busy, yet wondering if our busyness means anything to anyone. ‘Unfilled’ also means disconnection in this book. We are very busy without any intimate authentic relationship with anyone. Therefore, we become bored, resentful, depressed, and very lonely. Many worries fragmented our lives as we are occupied and preoccupied without intimate relationship with God and man.
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           [1]Henri Nouwen, Making All Things New: page 24.  

           [2]Ibid. 27.