The Wounded Healer
This book was surprisingly relevent to The Wake.
Not only did the first chapters touch on the painful lonilness and uncertainty of our own existance in this world, but much of the later chapters seemed to touch directly on the issues that preacher boy is going through in game.
"One of the most visible phenomena of out time is the tremendous exposure of man to divergent and often contrasting ideas, traditions, religious convictions, and life styles. Through mass media he is confronted with the most paradoxical human experiences. He is confronted not only with the most elaborate and expensive attempts to save the life of one man by heart transplantation, but also with the powerless ness of the world to help when thousands of people die from lack of food. He is confronted not only with man’s ability to travel rapidly to another planet, but also with hi hopeless impotence to end a senseless war on this planet. He is confronted not only with high-level discussions about human rights and Christian morality, but also with torture chambers in Brazil, Greece, and Vietnam. He is confronted not only with incredible ingenuity that can build damns, change riverbeds and create fertile new lands, but also with earthquakes, floods and tornadoes that can ruin in one hour more than a man can build in a generation. A man confronted with all this and trying to make sense of it cannot possibly deceive himself with one idea, concept, or thought system which could bring these contrasting images together into one consistent outlook on life." Pages 10-11
“a preaching and teaching still based on the assumption that man is on his way to a new land filled with promises, and that his creative activities in this world are the first signs of what he will see in the hereafter, cannot find a sounding board in a man whose mind is brooding on the suicidal potentials of his own world.” Page 14
"Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that men feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty that the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friend’s eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate man nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying." P 41
"It is not the task of the Christian leader to go around nervously trying to redeem people, to save them at the last minute, to put them on the right track. For we are redeemed once and for all. The Christian leader is called to help others affirm this great news, and to make visible in daily evens the fact that behind the dirty curtain of our painful symptoms there s something great to be seen: the face of Him in whose image we are shaped." p 45
"If a man were to appear from out of the cloudiness of Mr. Harrison’s existence who looked at him, spoke to him and pressed his hands in a gesture of real concern, that would have mattered, the emptiness of the past and the future can never be filled with words but only by the presence of a man. Because only then can the hope be born, that there might be at least one exception to the ‘nobody and nothing’ of his complaint- a hope that will make him whisper, ‘maybe, after all, someone is waiting for me.” 65
"When we are impatient, when we want to give up our loneliness and try to overcome the separation and incompleteness we feel, too soon, we easily relate to our human world with devastating expectations. We ignore what we already know with a deep-seated, intuitive knowledge - that no love or friendship, no intimate embrace or tender kiss, no community, commune, or collective, no man or woman, will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition. This truth is so disconcerting and painful that we are more prone to play games with our fantasies than to face the truth of our existence. Thus we keep hoping that one day we will find the man who really understands our experiences, the woman who will bring peace to our restless life, the job where we can fulfill our potentials, the book which will explain everything, and the place where we can feel at home." p 87
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, where the plans are made and the strategies discussed. He always seems to arrive at the wrong places at the wrong times with the wrong people, outside the walls of the city when the feat is over, with a few crying women." P 88
Not only did the first chapters touch on the painful lonilness and uncertainty of our own existance in this world, but much of the later chapters seemed to touch directly on the issues that preacher boy is going through in game.
"One of the most visible phenomena of out time is the tremendous exposure of man to divergent and often contrasting ideas, traditions, religious convictions, and life styles. Through mass media he is confronted with the most paradoxical human experiences. He is confronted not only with the most elaborate and expensive attempts to save the life of one man by heart transplantation, but also with the powerless ness of the world to help when thousands of people die from lack of food. He is confronted not only with man’s ability to travel rapidly to another planet, but also with hi hopeless impotence to end a senseless war on this planet. He is confronted not only with high-level discussions about human rights and Christian morality, but also with torture chambers in Brazil, Greece, and Vietnam. He is confronted not only with incredible ingenuity that can build damns, change riverbeds and create fertile new lands, but also with earthquakes, floods and tornadoes that can ruin in one hour more than a man can build in a generation. A man confronted with all this and trying to make sense of it cannot possibly deceive himself with one idea, concept, or thought system which could bring these contrasting images together into one consistent outlook on life." Pages 10-11
“a preaching and teaching still based on the assumption that man is on his way to a new land filled with promises, and that his creative activities in this world are the first signs of what he will see in the hereafter, cannot find a sounding board in a man whose mind is brooding on the suicidal potentials of his own world.” Page 14
"Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that men feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty that the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friend’s eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate man nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying." P 41
"It is not the task of the Christian leader to go around nervously trying to redeem people, to save them at the last minute, to put them on the right track. For we are redeemed once and for all. The Christian leader is called to help others affirm this great news, and to make visible in daily evens the fact that behind the dirty curtain of our painful symptoms there s something great to be seen: the face of Him in whose image we are shaped." p 45
"If a man were to appear from out of the cloudiness of Mr. Harrison’s existence who looked at him, spoke to him and pressed his hands in a gesture of real concern, that would have mattered, the emptiness of the past and the future can never be filled with words but only by the presence of a man. Because only then can the hope be born, that there might be at least one exception to the ‘nobody and nothing’ of his complaint- a hope that will make him whisper, ‘maybe, after all, someone is waiting for me.” 65
"When we are impatient, when we want to give up our loneliness and try to overcome the separation and incompleteness we feel, too soon, we easily relate to our human world with devastating expectations. We ignore what we already know with a deep-seated, intuitive knowledge - that no love or friendship, no intimate embrace or tender kiss, no community, commune, or collective, no man or woman, will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition. This truth is so disconcerting and painful that we are more prone to play games with our fantasies than to face the truth of our existence. Thus we keep hoping that one day we will find the man who really understands our experiences, the woman who will bring peace to our restless life, the job where we can fulfill our potentials, the book which will explain everything, and the place where we can feel at home." p 87
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, where the plans are made and the strategies discussed. He always seems to arrive at the wrong places at the wrong times with the wrong people, outside the walls of the city when the feat is over, with a few crying women." P 88