returning thanks to God for Henri Nouwen on the 22nd anniversary of his death...

Today is International Peace Day: September 21, 2018. Of the many prayers raised throughout the world, this one captured my attention:

        Grant us peace that will

BREAK our silence in the midst of violence

that prophetic voices shall resonate.

Grant us peace that will

PULL US DOWN from the steeple of our pride

so we'll learn to wash each other's feet.

Grant us peace that will

EMPTY us of hate and intolerance

that we'll turn guns into guitars and sing.

Grant us peace that will

SHUT our mouths up when we speak too much

that we'll learn to listen and understand what others are saying.

Grant us peace that will 

DISTURB us in our apathy

so we'll dance together under the sun.

Grant us peace that will

BURN our lethargic hearts

so we'll endure burning and let love and justice glow.

(http://overcomingviolence.org/en/decade-to-overcome-violence/about-dov/international-day-of-prayer-for/resources/prayers-2005.html)

It is also the anniversary of Henri Nouwen's death. Twenty-two years ago, while serving an urban congregation in Cleveland, OH, my spiritual director told me of Nouwen's passing. In much the same way that St. Lou Reed's death five years ago knocked me on my ass, awakening me to my own mortality, so Nouwen's death rattled me to my core. In many ways, Nouwen had become a role model for me: an enthusiastic man of prayer who loved the Eucharist, engaged the pain of the world with compassion, faced his own demons vigorously, and ached for the peace of God to heal creation. I first read With Open Hands in 1980 and soon devoured both The Wounded Healer and Out of Solitude. Three other texts touched my heart, too and gave shape and form to much of my ministry: Reaching Out, The Way of the Heart, and Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons.

As my life ripened through times of brokenness as well as joy, Nouwen became a passive spiritual director. The vulnerability expressed in The Inner Voice of Love gave me courage to do likewise. His experiment in sharing spiritual depth with those outside of the Christian tradition - The Life of the Beloved - gave me a tool for doing likewise. Both of his prayer journals, The Genesee Diary and Gracias, showed me that the ups, and more importantly the downs, of a life of prayer were holy and essential. And his clarifying interpretation of a Christian classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, opened my heart to grace at a time I felt lost. Currently I am slow reading three posthumous books re: spiritual direction, discernment, and spiritual formation. Further, Nouwen's time at Daybreak - L'Arche Toronto - was one of the reasons I made my way into towards the community in Ottawa - so I give thanks to Henri for this life changing "heads up!"

Two thoughts about Brother Henri strike me as important on this day of my remembrance. The first is one of those upside-down truths that makes no linear sense, but is soul-saving: when Nouwen's heart was broken open in unrequited love, an agony causing him to collapse emotionally and physically and necessitating intensive therapy and rest, he finally owned the magnitude of his inner pain. He had danced around it for decades, flirting with honesty, but rarely going into his own darkness with abandon. As is so often the case, however, we can avoid our fears and shadows for a long time. But if we want to move towards true wholeness in this realm, we have to let the inevitable crisis in our lives lead us through the darkness and into the light. On the other side of his break down, after extensive therapy and prayer, both Nouwen's writing and personal engagement with others became truly tender. He was a consciously "wounded healer" now, filled with hope born of humility. His battles with self, and his journey into and through his fears, helped me do likewise at a time when I would have rather run even as I knew that I could not hide.

The second thought is this: Nouwen showed me a way into a sacramental spirituality. I was raised in the Reformed tradition. Congregationalism. The radically non-conformist wing of Calvinist Christianity. In this part of the family, the emphasis tends towards pastoral care and intellectual preaching. Both have value, to be sure; and I have been blessed by them, too. What I found missing - and what Nouwen helped me discover - was how to see real life as a form of the holy. Mystical and sacramental spirituality seeks to discern the "eagle within the egg" as well as the Word within the Flesh. It was not, as my world had been, all about good works and the primacy of solid doctrine. Rather, the way of Nouwen was connected to God in nature, in love, in acts of compassion and justice, as well as worship. Eucharist was essential for Henri. Me, too. Through Nouwen I discovered a path towards the holy that was as earthy and gritty as my own soul.  Sacramental spirituality gave me permission to enter music as communion with God. Or bread-baking as a contemplative practice. Or loving my children as the core of my calling.

In a way, Nouwen saved my life by giving me words to express what I did not know how to say. And, by sharing his own journey into fear and doubt that let me descend fully into my own so that I might learn the wisdom of our wounds. I still miss Nouwen all these years later. And find I read him more often than any other writer. I am going to bake some more bread today in homage to Henri's  spirit - and as it is rising, I'll read a little Nouwen, too. Today I give thanks to the Lord for Henri Nouwen. "In the end, a life of prayer is a life with open hands where we are not ashamed of our weakness, but realize that it is more perfect for us to be led by the other, than to try to hold everything in our own hands." (With Open Hands)

(Here's a picture I took one afternoon in Brooklyn waiting for my grandson to get finished with pre-school. The whole thing captures the gifts Henri shared with me...)