From “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life” by Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird
In Lima, Peru, I discerned God’s preferential concern for the poor and grew in the conviction that I, too, had to choose that option. It was there that I heard the clear call to dedicate my future to the life of a shepherd. It was there that I discovered for the first time that those who are marginalized by our society carry within them a great treasure. And it was in Lima that I learned that without prayer and community all my pastoral activities would end up in fruitless burnout.
I can now see that my desire to leave the university and live in community among the poor was a God-given desire, though one whose concrete realization required some real purification. Only gradually did I discover that God’s call was in fact a divine response to the deepest desire of my own heart: the desire to find a home among God’s poor.