from http://home.mweb.co.za/mj/mjbrooks/Nouwen.htm
For a Christian, Jesus is the man in whom it has indeed
become manifest that revolution and conversion cannot be separated in man's
search for experiential transcendence. 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.
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. In this sense he also remains for nuclear man the way
to liberation and freedom.
[Henri Nouwen: The Wounded Healer]
from http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~mdbolik/hnouwen.htm
Henri Nouwen is worldwide the most popular writer
on Christian spirituality. Not only because the books are nice to read , but
also because his spirituality is so close to life. He started an academic
career, but soon he discovered that an abstract theology is so far away from
a vivid faith. With his death, at September 21 1996, the Christian world
lost one of his monuments.
Modern and real.
About ten years ago, we first got to know the writings of Nouwen. A Dutch
priest had given me "Letters to Mark". In the beginning I was
rather skeptical, because there are many books on spirituality and faith,
but very often they are far away from life and the language is hard to
understand. Nouwen's books are different. His books are authentic, close to
life and he doesn't avoid the difficult questions. Usual they reflect a deep
and true faith full of reflections on prayer and silence, joy and gratitude,
doubt and faith, ... Nouwen had gone a long way before he got the
recognition that he deserved - but never wanted.
A fascinating life.
Henri Nouwen was born in The Netherlands. After his studies for priest (
he was ordained in 1957), he studied psychology at Nijmegen. Later on he got
a specialization in religion, psychology and psychiatry at Kansas. Between
1966 and 1968 he was teaching at the Pastoral Institute of Amsterdam and the
Theological Institute at Utrecht. In between 1970-1971 he studied theology
at Nijmegen, and earned a doctorate. In 1972 he started the American period.
He became professor of pastoral theology at the Divinity School of Yale
University. The period was successful, but he felt that he missed something.
Teaching theology doesn't guarantee a religious life.
Later on he wrote: ' The more I reflected, the more I realized the
meaning of Jesus' words "The first will be the last and the last will
be the first" I started to be afraid that belonging to those who have a
successful career, would take away what I desired most: to be loved'. He
continued his work at the University, this time at Harvard. But the struggle
continued.
Finally home.
The change comes after a meeting with Jean Vanier, the foundor of L'Arche
. Later on he writes about Vanier: " ... one of the most vivid and most
inspired people I ever met". In 1984 he stayed for 9 months at the
L'Arche-community of Trosly, in France. The L'Arche-movement has communities
worldwide. Mentally handicapped people live together with their assistants.
In 1985 , he left the academic world. From 1986 till his death, in 1996, he
was priest at the L'Arche-community of Richmond Hill, a suburb a half-hour
north of Toronto, Canada. He shared his life with mentally handicapped
people.
The beginning was hard, at the Daybreak Community. On the one hand the
pastorate with mentally handicapped people was new, on the other hand he got
to get used to the life in the community. Jurjen Beumer wrote on this
period, in his recently published biography: " During this period , he
developed his narrative spirituality in which the big words of the Christian
tradition were represented in narrative". The pastoral activity with
the handicapped got priority and writing could only happen during the free
moments. It was hard to find a good balance between both. The fact that he
was known worldwide and had to give lectures, seminars, ... made things more
complicated.
The spirituality of Nouwen.
Spirituality cannot be an escape from the world. This is why his
spirituality is so close to life. Beumer accentuates the close relation
between intimacy and spirituality. Nouwen uses 'upward mobility' and
'downward mobility' to express this relation. They reflect the dynamism and
the rivalry between God and men. People are looking upward. They want fame,
more, better and higher. But this striving causes alienation, and the higher
they go ... the bigger the alienation. The challenge of life is to take the
risk to go down the stairway. The way down is the road of the Kingdom of
God. From ourselves - and in this world of consumption - people don't seem
to get the idea to change the direction and to go to the little and the
oppressed. But exactly this 'downward mobility' is illustrated in every
story of the Bible and makes the gospel the "good news". The way
down of Jesus is in contrast with our desire, our world and the culture to
which I belong". Nouwen is not afraid of criticizing himself. This
becomes clear when he tells that even the way down won't be sufficient,
because the danger exists that we are proud because we are so
"good". To get results we need unselfishness and humility. This
remains a challenge for all of us, but it is only in this way that we'll be
able to experience God's love ...
Information on L'Arche is available in French and
English
French about L'Arche at: http://linux.utc.fr/~tom/LArche/intro.html http://linux.utc.fr/~tom/LArche/intro.html
about Jean Vanier at: http://linux.utc.fr/~tom/LArche/Vanier.html
English about L'Arche at : http://linux.utc.fr/~tom/LArche/intro-eng.html
about Jean Vanier at: http://linux.utc.fr/~tom/LArche/Vanier-eng.html
L'Arche Antigonish (in Nova Scotia, in eastern Canada) has its own web
site: http://www.grassroots.ns.ca/comgrp/larche.htm
Harry Palmer, a Canadian photographer, has photographed all recipients of
the Companion of the Order of Canada, the country's highest honour. Of Jean
Vanier, he wrote, "Jean Vanier, who asked to be photographed with the
residents of L'Arche, has given us an image of collective achievement; his
personal legacy is one of humility and grace."
Jean Vanier's photograph is found at: http://www.harrypalmergallery.ab.ca/galcomppz/vanierj.html
The photo of his mother, Madame Pauline Vanier, is found at: http://www.harrypalmergallery.ab.ca/galcomppz/vanierp.html
¡@
from http://www.ping.be/flanders_religion/parken1.htm
Calvin
Burge gave up on love many decades ago. Well, he almost did, after
growing up in a family in which his mother died giving childbirth and
"my dad couldn't take care of us." By the time he was an adult,
Burge felt great pangs of loneliness. He read books about love to try to
figure out what it meant. "Being loved and accepting love has been a
major problem in my life," he says.
A turning point for Burge came in the late 1980s while he was teaching at
Michigan's Spring Arbor College, which selected Henri Nouwen's book, The
Wounded Healer, as its book of the year. Burge read it and felt
personally attracted to the writer. Now retired, Burge has since read most
of Nouwen's books and in his own small way has helped Nouwen become one of
the most popular spiritual writers of the late 20th century.
Nouwen, born and ordained a priest in the Netherlands and trained as a
psychologist in Kansas, wrote more than 40 books. He taught at Notre Dame,
Harvard, and Yale universities and spent the last 10 years of his life at
L'Arche Daybreak, a community in the Toronto suburbs where disabled and
able-bodied people live together. He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1996
at the age of 64.
Nouwen has remained a bestselling author even after his death. In North
America alone, more than 1 million copies of his books have been sold since
1996, and he has also remained highly popular in Europe.
Nouwen's friend and biographer, Robert Jonas, says the power of Nouwen's
writing blossomed partially from the fact that he "courageously stood
with one foot in the shadow of self-rejection and one foot in the daylight
of God's love."
On the one hand, Nouwen was intensely generous and compassionate. Almost
daily he would pray with others and send notes of encouragement, flowers, or
other gifts, including signed books, to people throughout the world. And he
would travel to give speeches and provide comfort to friends in need,
sometimes at a moment's notice.
But Nouwen suffered deeply. He admitted he usually did not feel the
affection from others that he deeply craved¡Xsuffering from what Jonas
calls Nouwen's "habitual, almost neurotic need to be needed."
Accepting that he was loved remained a lifelong struggle. Nouwen spent some
time in a treatment center, suffering from deep depression and wallowing in
the depths of despair over a broken relationship. He felt such anguish that
he wrote on many occasions about how desperately draining it can be to feel
broken.
Nouwen's readers identify with those struggles¡Xone reason he is so
popular. "He can share his own fragility with people, and I can
identify with that," says Barb Fuhrwerk of Springfield, Illinois. She
was taught at a young age to focus on her strengths and offer to God her
talents. Now she finds herself, like Nouwen, relating to God primarily
through her brokenness.
She gave a friend going through some struggles Nouwen's book Letters to
Marc About Jesus. Nouwen's letters became a lifesaver to him and the
perfect method for reflecting on his own struggles, Fuhrwerk says.
Nouwen's spirituality also resonates with so many because he had a knack for
avoiding theological and psychological babble and explaining the spiritual
life with powerful stories in simple language.
"The hardest thing for us is to love well the people we really love,
the people closest to us," says Tannis Arnett of Toronto.
I never met Henri
Nouwen, but we had a 10-year
friendship by correspondence.
It began when I was editor of a diocesan Catholic newspaper in the
1980s. On a whim one week, I published an "Open letter to Henri
Nouwen" in which I reflected on my own life in light of his
candid writings. I identified not only with his struggles with the
spiritual life but also with his hope. I sent him a clipping, and he
surprised me with a handwritten, grateful reply that ended,
"Stay in touch."
So I did.
And I started publishing an open letter to him every year. Each year
he would respond. As the open letters continued for six years, our
correspondence became more frequent. Only after his death in 1996
did I find out that Henri corresponded with many people and set
aside a part of most days to correspond. He also sent Rembrandt
prints of The Return of the Prodigal Son or flowers, and he wrote
forewords for many books. He had trouble saying no.
A friend of mine received a Rembrandt print and chuckled that Henri
must have wrapped it himself. She could tell by the crumpled, uneven
wrapping job and the way it was taped. Alas, Henri was legendary for
being a bit clumsy.
But more important, he was generous almost beyond description,
especially with his time. Many people benefited from his generosity,
and many who never met him often felt surprised and uplifted that
such a famous man would take time for them personally.¡XE.W. |
Reading The Return of the
Prodigal Son, which Nouwen considered his best book, had a major impact
on Arnett. Nouwen zeroes in on every character in the biblical parable: the
younger son who goes away and comes back, the elder son who becomes so
resentful and jealous, and the father who throws a huge party when the
prodigal son returns.
Nouwen eventually focuses on the father and concludes that he and other
Christians face the ultimate challenge in responding to others with the
great compassion the father demonstrated. Nonetheless, Nouwen writes,
"It does not surprise me at all that few claim fatherhood for
themselves. The pains are too obvious, the joys too hidden. And still, by
not claiming it, I shirk my responsibility as a spiritually adult
person."
Until she read Nouwen's book, Arnett says she had always focused on the
younger son. "The further development for me is learning to be the
father," she says. "The ultimate role is to be that loving and
forgiving person so that others can live to the fullest. If you want to be
loved, then love. If you want to be forgiven, then forgive."
Wendy Greer of New York, who, like Nouwen, suffered from depression, says
she had read some of his work and eventually wrote him a 15-page letter. He
responded by sending her a copy of The Return of the Prodigal Son.
"I felt so special and thought, 'What kind of person is this?' "
Greer says. She then attended a conference in North Carolina at which Nouwen
spoke and became, along with her husband, Jay, great friends of the author.
Greer draws the same conclusion that Arnett does about how difficult it is
to live as the "father" in the prodigal son story.
"We have to forgive each other for not loving perfectly," she
says. "Only God loves perfectly."
But Arnett, Greer, and other Nouwen admirers struggle with a concept that
became central to Nouwen as he developed a framework for the spiritual life.
That concept, repeated often by Nouwen in his later years, is that people
must accept that they are loved¡Xand worthy of love¡Xby God and others.
Nouwen talked and wrote frequently about "the life of the
beloved."
He started with the premise that most people feel wounded, hurt, or broken
in some way. Even worse, many secretly feel they are not good enough, smart
enough, productive enough, or successful enough¡Xand they believe it when
others express such lies about them.
Nouwen emphasized the fundamental
truth that people are both loved and lovable. He calls this being
"chosen" to be loved.
"The truth," he wrote in The Life of the Beloved,
"even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child
of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity and
held safe in an everlasting embrace . . . We must dare to opt consciously
for our chosenness and not allow our emotions, feelings, or passions to
seduce us into self-rejection."
Deirdre LaNoue, an assistant professor at Dallas Baptist University who
studied Nouwen's work for a dissertation, says the way Nouwen emphasized
being the beloved had a "lightbulb effect on me."
Nouwen lamented that society teaches people that they have value because of
what they do, how much power they have, or what other people think of them.
For LaNoue, Nouwen articulated well what Jesus says¡Xthat she is God's
beloved daughter, God's chosen person, and that is enough. Working to
internalize that concept is liberating because it dissipates competition and
comparisons with others.
But it is also difficult.
Perhaps the great irony that makes Nouwen's work resonate around the world
is that although this concept of belovedness is so basic, it's not easy for
most people to truly accept. As LaNoue puts it, "Do I really believe
that God loves me, and do I trust that love?
"I am realizing that I may cognitively assent to that, but do I live
like that? And I've found the answer to be no. So I have to think through it
and pray about it. To live that way consistently is one of the basic
challenges of the Christian life."
Similarly, Burge says that in his head he is capable of believing he is
God's beloved child, "but I have a long way to go to get it in my
heart."
Arnett says the concept of being beloved goes hand in hand with the issue of
suffering. "We are called to be in a place where we feel beloved,"
she says. "There are so many times when I forget it, I don't really
believe it. But when I do, when we feel that, we really know God's
heart."
Last year, she says, she was able to mend relationships with family members,
including a twin sister, by approaching them from a spirit of belovedness.
That allowed her to listen more compassionately, react less quickly, and see
the suffering in others rather than dwell on her own disappointment.
In short, LaNoue concludes, feeling beloved is liberating. "You lose
your need to compete. If you can believe your own belovedness, you believe
that about others."
Nouwen had some practical advice for those struggling with feeling beloved.
He advised them to keep looking for people and places where they feel chosen
and beloved, instead of worrying about feeling valued for what they can do,
what they have, or what others say about them. But he had trouble following
his own advice and wrote honestly about his struggles¡Xit is this
complexity and struggle that causes millions of people to feel as if they
are on a spiritual journey with Nouwen.
Best
of Nouwen
Among Henri Nouwen's 40 books are a few that
regularly show up on admirers' lists of favorites:
The Return of the Prodigal Son
(Doubleday, 1992). Powerful reflections on the characters in
Rembrandt's painting of the same title¡Xwhat it means to live as
the younger son, the older resentful son, and the father. Nouwen
thought this was his best and most important book.
The Life of the Beloved (Crossroad,
1993). In some ways the culmination of Nouwen's writing, this book
emphasizes in new ways the power and liberation individuals feel
when they accept that they are "beloved" by God.
The Wounded Healer (Doubleday, 1972).
An explanation of how people bring hope to others through their own
pain and suffering. A book widely read and well known by ministers,
Protestant and Catholic alike.
The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful
Life (Crossroad, 1999). An interesting compilation of
Nouwen's reflections on the power of prayer, along with a selection
of his own written prayers, some of them never published before.
With Open Hands (Ave Maria Press, 1972,
revised 1994). An early look at how powerfully Nouwen felt early on
about the important concepts of solitude, prayer, and compassion.
For an insightful, concise biography of Nouwen and his spirituality,
along with well-organized selected passages from his books, see a
book called Henri Nouwen: Writings Selected
with an Introduction by Robert A. Jonas (Orbis, 1998).¡XE.W. |
It
is not difficult to summarize Nouwen's overall approach to
spirituality, according to Robert Jonas. This spirituality consists of three
movements as described in the gospel story in Luke 6:12-19. The newly formed
Henri Nouwen Society summarizes these movements as solitude, community, and
compassion.
Solitude. In the gospel story, Jesus spent a night in prayer. Nouwen
taught that in one's solitude and prayer, a person discovers that he or she
is loved by God. LaNoue's Southern Baptist tradition did not emphasize
silence and solitude, but Nouwen's statement that we live in a wordy, noisy
world has changed her prayer life. Her behavior is changing as well.
Although she loves music, she now tries to keep the stereo off as she's
driving around Dallas. "The music disturbs the quiet," she says,
adding, "It is new territory to practice the discipline of
silence."
Community. Jesus came down from the mountain and formed a community
around him. And so for Nouwen, being a Christian meant sharing hearts and
finding others who believe in God's truth. Nouwen once commented that people
do not have to create community but simply be obedient to its presence that
is already there for those who search for it.
Greer, president of the Henri Nouwen Society, says Nouwen has left a rich
legacy to be shared. So a major function of the society will be to bring
people together to pray, reflect, discuss, and share. Greer says Nouwen
formed community wherever he went and preached the paramount importance of
hospitality. "He gathered people and challenged us to proclaim the
truth of our belovedness," Greer relates.
Compassion (or ministry). In the third movement in Luke's gospel, the
community went into the marketplace and served other people. For Nouwen,
being Christian meant doing ministry by showing compassion to others. While
best known for his spiritual writings, Nouwen also preached social justice
and downward mobility. He found it important to identify with the poor. That
is one reason why, after teaching for years at universities, he found a home
at L'Arche Daybreak, the community for disabled people in the Toronto
suburbs.
The Rev. Steve Berry of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles says
Nouwen built an extraordinary bridge¡Xmany bridges, in fact¡Xthat connect
Christians of many traditions. "No longer can it be Protestant and
Catholic," Berry says. "Christ calls all people to himself. I
wouldn't have gotten that from most Protestant or Catholic churches, but I
got it from Nouwen."
"Most of his inner attention
went to this question of belovedness and feeling loved," Jonas says. He
knew that Nouwen could feel exhilarated speaking to a crowd of a thousand
people, only to return to his room feeling empty, drained, self-attacking,
and longing for affection.
"He was complicated," Jonas says. Nouwen wrote with articulate
simplicity and care about the spiritual life, yet he never felt completely
rooted in God's love. Jonas explains: "He'd glimpse it but get
uprooted."
Just like his friends. Just like his admirers. Just like his readers who
continue to buy and discuss his books, simultaneously struggling and
chuckling that one's personal spirituality involves a lifelong journey on
which you never get to the place you think you ought to be.
Ed Wojcicki is publisher of Illinois
Issues in Springfield, Illinois. He is a member of the Henri Nouwen Society
board and a contributor to Nouwen Then:
Personal Reflections on Henri (Zondervan,
1999).
For more information: The Henri
Nouwen Literary Centre in Canada offers information about Nouwen, his
books, and his life. Also, friends of Nouwen launched the Henri Nouwen
Society in 1998 to share his spirituality and preserve his legacy. Write:
Henri Nouwen Society, Box 230523, Ansonia Station, New York, NY 10023.
from http://www.uscatholic.org/2000/04/nouwen.htm
Henri Nouwen - A Prophet to be Heeded
"Many people have become disillusioned with the
Church because of (her focus on the morality of human behaviour)... but when
the moral life gets all the attention, we are in danger of forgetting the
primacy of the mystical life, which is the life of the heart."
So wrote the late Henri Nouwen in his autobiography 'The
Road to Daybreak'. Nouwen (pronounced Now-an) must be one of the most widely
read contemporary spiritual authors from the Western Catholic tradition with
up to 40 publications over his 64 years. He died in 1996.
Somehow his evangelical fervour, which burns from the
heart of the Church, has a capacity to ignite a Christian readership
stretching from Baptists to Eastern Orthodox. This fervour is intent upon
challenging the moralistic tendencies of the Churches, with a call back to
grace as the dynamic of the Christian Faith and the mystical life.
In his autobiography he tells the tale of a spiritual
journey from a privileged position as a professor at Harvard Divinity School
to live among people with developmental disabilities at the L'Arche Daybreak
Community in Canada.
This is a movement he describes, in reference to his
reluctance, as "going downward mobile" with God, to use a
memorable phrase from the book.
"People seek glory by moving upward. God reveals his
glory by moving downward. If we truly want to see the glory of God, we must
move downward with Jesus. This is the deepest reason for living in
solidarity with poor, oppressed and handicapped people. They are the ones
through whom God's glory can manifest itself to us. They show us the way to
God, the way to salvation."
Yet "everything in me wants to move upward.
Downward mobility with Jesus goes radically against my inclinations, against
the advice of the world surrounding me."
Nouwen in the end decides "the issue is not where
you are, but how you live where you are... that means a constant choosing of
what is important and a willingness to accept that the urgent things can
wait or be left undone... You have to decide to whom you want to be
obedient."
His convictions about meeting Jesus in the poor link to
the gift of Jesus in the Eucharist, as in this quotation from Jean Vanier,
founder of L'Arche:
"There is an intimate connection between the
presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and the presence of Jesus in the deprived
person. The deprived person sends us back to Jesus in the Eucharist. To
receive the Body of Jesus is to have his eyes and his heart to see him in
the poor."
Elsewhere, thinking about the Feast of Corpus Christi he
writes:
"The greatest mystery of the Christian faith is that
God came to us in the body, suffered with us in the body, rose in the body,
and gave us his body as food. No religion takes the body as seriously as the
Christian religion... My body is much more than a mortal instrument of
pleasure and pain. It is a home where God wants to manifest the fullness of
the divine glory.... The abuse of the body - whether it be psychological
(eg. instilling fear), physical (eg. torture), economic (eg. exploitation),
or sexual (eg. hedonistic pleasure seeking) - is a distortion of true human
destiny: to live in the body eternally with God. The loving care given to
our bodies and the bodies of others is therefore a truly spiritual act,
since it leads the body closer toward its glorious existence."
Nouwen settles himself on two priorities for support -
prayer (one hour a day plus the Eucharist) and spiritual friendship:
"The most important criterion is prayer. As long as
I pray daily, intimately and long, I stay in the right place and continue to
walk on the road to faithfulness. But when I let my prayer go because of
fatigue, distraction, or laziness, I know that I will soon be on the other
side of the fence. The second criterion is a deep, confessing friendship. I
now realise that I need regular contact with a friend who keeps me close to
Jesus and continues to call me to faithfulness."
"To adore is to be drawn away from my own
preoccupations into the presence of Jesus. It means letting go of what I
want, desire, and have planned and fully trusting Jesus and his love."
"I now understand much better why Jesus sent his
disciples into the world in groups of two rather than alone. Together they
could maintain the spirit of peace and love they found in his company and
could share these gifts with everyone they met."
Prayer and friendship are therefore seen not just as the
receipe for the growth of the Church but for the growth of every Christian.
from http://www.twisleton.demon.co.uk/articles/nouwen.htm
Mystics and Revolutionaries
"Every real revolutionary is
challenged to be a mystic at heart, and one who walks the mystical way is
called to unmask the illusory quality of human society. Mysticism and
revolution are two aspects of the same attempt to bring about radical
change. No mystics can prevent themselves from becoming social critics,
since in self-reflection they will discover the roots of a sick society.
Similarly, no revolutionaries can avoid facing their own human condition,
since in the midst of their struggle for a new world they will find that
they are also fighting their own reactionary fears and false ambitions.
Mystics and revolutionaries must cut loose from their selfish needs for a
safe and protected existence and face without fear their own miserable
condition and that of the world around them. The appearance of Jesus 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."
-- Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Heart
(Nouwen, 1932-1996, was a Dutch Catholic
priest and divinity professor who later
became a peace and civil rights activist.)
from http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/mystics_and_revolutionaries.htm
Book Review:
Wounded Prophet:A Portrait of Henri J. M. NouwenAuthor:
Michael Ford
http://www.uu.edu/centers/faculty/bookreviews/leverett.htm
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