Gracias!

"A treasure lies hidden in the soul of Latin America, a spiritual treasure to be recognized as a gift for us who live in the illusion of power and self-control. It is the treasure of gratitiude that can help us to break through the walls of our individual and collective self-righteousness and can prevent us from destroying ourselves and our planet in the fertile attempt to hold onto what we consider our own." - Henri Nouwen in his book Gracias! A Latin American Journal (italic emphasis mine)

Henri Nouwen has been a favorite author and mentor of mine since my early college days. He was a Catholic priest from Europe who moved to the States to teach around the country in universities. He eventually left the lecture circuit to take a position as a priest in the Sunshine Community in Canada. It was a community for the mentally handicapped. He died in the late nineties but left a treasure in his writings from his college days to his late servanthood days.
I came across this book back in December. I had never known that Henri had a calling to South America, nor did I know that he wrote about his experience. I decided to find a used copy and have it sent down to Bogota. It has been an anchor book. I felt that we both had experienced very similar people, places, theologies, ideologies, and desires. It is truly an amzing book and I encourage anyone interested in traveling to South America or wanting to see a glimpse of this world to read it. His insights and thoughts have always been deep and wide. Two decades separate our experiences as well as two separate countries of South America. Yet, our experiences and thoughts have run parallel and perpendicular at times. There is something yet for me to learn as a North-American living in South America.