Wounded Healer - Part 5 (The Revolutionary Way)

I should break this post into two separate sections, but I really want to wrap up chapter 1. So I apologize in advance for the long post. There are some really good quotes though, that I just couldn't pass up. Hope you enjoy.

In addition to the mystic way, Nouwen proposes another way for mankind to transcend his/her broken and fragmented life/world. He calls it the revolutionary way.

To summarize, the revolutionary way is a move from passive fatalism to radical activism. The choice for the individual is no longer his/her world or a better world, but no world or new world.

Here's a quote...

"While in the past scarcity led man to revolt, the present-day revolutionary sees the urgent and immediate needs of his suffering fellow man as part of a much greater apocalyptic scene in which the survival of humanity itself is at stake...The life of this man is not ruled by manipulation and supported by weapons, but is ruled by love and supported by new ways of interpersonal communication."

I think we are beginning to see this type of "Revolution" in our world today. Maybe just a peak....we still have a long ways to go. But it is very interesting when you see the movements like One, Amazing Change, World Vision, etc... Organizations and people dedicated to not only
helping their fellow men & women across the globe, but liberating them from the systems, governments, and powers that oppress them.

Nouwen closes out Chapter one by emphasizing that the Christian way is really a combination of the Mystic and Revolutionary ways of life.

"Every real revolutionary is challenged to be a mystic at heart, and he who walks the mystical way is called to unmask the illusory quality of human society...No mystic can prevent himself from becoming a social critic, since in self-reflection he will discover the roots of a sick society. Similarly, no revolutionary can avoid facing his own human condition, since in the midst of his struggle for a new world he will find that he is also fighting his own reactionary fears and false ambitions."

"For the mystic as well as for the revolutionary, life means breaking through the veil covering our human existence and following the vision that has become manifest to us... For a Christian, Jesus is the man in whom it has indeed become manifest...His appearance in our midst has made it undeniably clear that changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross... "

Last quote...

"Jesus was a revolutionary, who did not become an extremist, since he did not offer an ideology, but himself. He was also a mystic, who did not use his intimate relationship with God to avoid the social evils of his time, but shocked his milieu to the point of being executed as a rebel"

Are you a mystic or revolutionary? Do you find that you tend to be
more one or the other easier?

As revolutionary, how hard is it to avoid extremism? Do you offer an ideology or yourself? As mystic, how hard is to avoid withdrawal from the world into the inner sanctum of your soul?