And now we come to brokenness. Perhaps it is audacious for Nouwen to assert that brokenness is a part of being beloved, but it is so. Why this is the case, I don’t know. Yet it is true. Innocence is shattered by experience. At some point, we discover the darkness within us for what it is, and we … Continue reading Explore the Spiritual Classics: Life of the Beloved (part 4)
Nouwen
Explore the Spiritual Classics: Life of the Beloved (part 2)
“I choose you" Makes you feel kind of special, right? This is the first movement of Nouwen’s explanation of the spiritual life: our chosen-ness. “When love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one …,” Nouwen writes. In other words, God sees the fullness of our distinctiveness (for He shaped … Continue reading Explore the Spiritual Classics: Life of the Beloved (part 2)
Explore the Spiritual Classics: Life of the Beloved (pt 1)
Why bother with spiritual things?Henri Nouwen wrote Life of the Beloved to answer that question. He had developed a close friendship with a sophisticated, non-religious urbanite. This friend, Fred, was a part of an intellectual society that had lost all resonance with the forms of religion. Yet Fred saw in Nouwen a deep rootedness, a … Continue reading Explore the Spiritual Classics: Life of the Beloved (pt 1)
Horizons of the Possible 