Henri Nouwen Research Articles

Insights From Henri Nouwen for Intellectual Disability Nursing.

Henri Nouwen's writings provide opportunity for nurses, students, and educators to reflect on nursing in the context of Christian faith. This article offers insight from Nouwen's work and its relevance to intellectual disability nursing practice and education. Five themes are developed from Nouwen's insights: 1) the descending way, 2) insignificance and marginalization, 3) learning to support the person, 4) building relationship, and 5) trusting God will catch you.

Shall we dance? Choreographing hospitality as key to interpersonal transformation

The icon of the Holy Trinity by Andrei Rublev (1425) is a celebration of hospitality. This article contemplates the icon through Henri Nouwen’s eyes, using his methodology, and shows how the spiritual practice of hospitality is key to interpersonal transformation. The article considers Nouwen’s proposition that hospitality involved creating a space of true freedom in which the stranger can become a friend. It discusses Beatrice Bruteau’s view that such a free space required a communion paradigm in interpersonal relations, before investigating Nouwen’s unique metaphor for interpersonal transformation, a movement from hostility to hospitality. Finally, the article formulates principles for the spiritual practice of hospitality for ordinary people in everyday life, by considering the contributions of contemporary spiritual writers, Barbara Brown Taylor and Christine Pohl. Brown Taylor believes that the practice of hospitality began with paying attention, and Pohl warns against the challenges associated with its practice.

To be wounded and yet heal. How two wounded healers helped Henri Nouwen find solitude

This article explored Henri Nouwen’s well-known concept, the wounded healer. After investigating its origins, Henri Nouwen’s use of the term was examined. The article proposed that Henri Nouwen was mainly influenced by Anton Boisen and Vincent van Gogh in his use of the concept of the wounded healer. Nouwen’s interest in these persons was considered to glean how they shaped his thoughts before focusing on he used a model of pastoral analysis, the living document model to autobiographically explore his own wounds, to access them, and to offer what he learned as a means of healing for his audiences. Nouwen recognised himself as wounded and became for his readers a wounded healer. Nolte and Dreyer’s view that the wounded healer concept was a welcome corrective to prevailing models of pastoral care, and De Jong’s view that the wounded healer is a pathway to self-actualisation were used as a bridge to Nouwen’s views on personal spiritual transformation. Finally, Nouwen’s thoughts on transformation involving a movement from loneliness to solitude were investigated, showing that the outcome was a move towards a considered and deeper interaction with the world.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article contributed to scholarship in Christian spirituality by considering the work of Henri J. M. Nouwen and the sources of his concept, the wounded healer. It also considered connections with and implications for pastoral psychology and practical theology.

In the grip of Grace

This article will consider the unitive stage in the mystical path Henri Nouwen lived and wrote about. It will begin by characterising the mystical way, together with its journey motif. Then, it will place Nouwen's spirituality within the context of his life and writing, and finally, it will outline three events which led Nouwen to describe the unitive stage of the mystical journey tentatively. The first "mystical moment" emerges from Nouwen's contemplation of the Divine/Human embrace in Rembrandt's painting, The Return of the Prodigal Son. The second occurs as a result of his reflection on the spiritual significance of attending to the practical needs of a severely disabled man, and the third from his contemplation on a flying trapeze performance at a circus. The article proposes that these encounters were mystical, came as a result of Nouwen's contemplative practice, and shaped Nouwen's perception of the unitive stage in his mystical journey.

Swinging between two poles. Henri Nouwen’s unique metaphor for spiritual transformation

The article seeks to examine Henri Nouwen’s contribution to the study of spiritual transformation by uncovering his methodology, elucidating his sources, and exploring his central metaphor. When Nouwen considers the path to spiritual wholeness, he begins with an analysis of the typical Western lifestyle. Thereafter, he searches for an “antidote” to the sense of alienation he discovers. This “antidote” is expressed as a process of transformation into love. This article considers the nature of transformation in the classic mystical tradition and touches on the contributions of perennial philosophy and transpersonal psychology which may have influenced Nouwen. The question as to whether transformation is a linear, staged, or cyclical process is considered and Waaijman’s proposal that it should be described as a “way” is explored. Finally, the article contributes to the study of spiritual transformation by considering Nouwen’s description of transformation as a series of spiritual swings between poles.

Henri Nouwen: Deeply Wounded and Beloved Healer

This article tracks the life of Henri Nouwen focusing on his years at Yale Divinity School, particularly 1972-73 when he taught a course on Thomas Merton in which the author participated. The author recounts his interaction with Nouwen both personally and academically. Following Yale, the article describes Nouwen’s immersion in Latin American liberation theology, his teaching at Harvard Divinity School, and eventually finding his vocational calling fulfilled at a L’Arche community, Daybreak, in Toronto. Henri’s ministry to the profoundly disabled at Daybreak turned tragic as his workaholic schedule of ministry, speaking and writing was disrupted by a wintertime accident. Amidst this Henry was forced to deal with his own profound insecurity and depression stemming in part from his homosexuality, which he kept hidden. An analysis of his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, demonstrates how Henri used his own anxieties, doubts and failures to bring spiritual growth and healing to a global audience. Henri’s hectic lifestyle and psychological stress finally brought the life of this deeply wounded and beloved healer to an early end.

The Japanese Concept of Amae: New Light on Henri Nouwen’s Experience of Depression

The Japanese Concept of Amae: New Light on Henri Nouwen’s Experience of Depression

Resisting Restless Protestant Religious Consumers in the Korean Burnout Society: Examining Korean Protestantism’s Rising Interest in Apophatic and Desert Spirituality

Why have Korean Protestants been enthusiastic for Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, and Orthodox books in recent years? This article proposes that apophatic spirituality and desert asceticism, influential in both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, can help assuage the thirst of Korean Protestants exhausted by the excesses of positivity and the exploitation of self. I focus on the insatiable consuming passions of Korean Protestant religious consumerism as symptoms of the burnout society. I then explore the major contribution of apophatic spirituality and desert asceticism, which have much to teach contemporary Korean Protestantism.

Spirituality as a Science of the Heart

The presentation examined the role of Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen and Donald Nicholl as pilgrims of wisdom and peace, their ministry of prayer grounded in contemplation, their commitment as peacemakers, their role as spiritual diarists of compelling relevance, their deep and perduring ecumenical, indeed interfaith, appeal well into our own century and their personal integrity or holiness of life.
 All three were Roman CatholicsThomas Merton was a Trappist monk, Henri Nouwen a priest of the Archdiocese of Utrecht, and Donald Nicholl, a married layman and father and professor of History and Religious Studiesbut their breadth of vision, their deep understanding of faith as the science of the heart, and their inexhaustible openness to the world all combined to make them genuinely extra-territorial spiritual figures.

The Medicine of Place

The Medicine of Place Steven Chase We finished editing this issue of Spiritus about the time I came across a little book of poetry in the form of epigrams and "easy essays" by J. Vincent Hansen with earthy photographs by Chuck Norwood.1 In the book, Hansen and Norwood explore wisdom and healing in forms akin to Karl Jung's poetic insight that "fascination is the oldest form of healing, and the earth is the oldest form of fascination": medicine and place. We had no intention of a cohesive theme in this issue; apparently the least of intentions can create a cohort of the best of intentions; a theme, or I should say, "themes" developed. In his justifiably well-known and respected book, The Poetics of Space,2 Gaston Bachelard writes of his intentions for the book, intentions that awaken the soul. And so, we find that the essays of this issue do the same: in this case, without intention, they awaken the soul. Bachelard writes: I plan to concentrate particularly on poetic reverie as a phenomenology of the soul. In itself, reverie constitutes a psychic condition that is too frequently confused with dream. But when it is a question of poetic reverie, of reverie that derives pleasure not only from itself, but also prepares poetic pleasure for other souls, one realizes that one is no longer drifting into somnolence. The mind is able to relax, but in poetic reverie the soul keeps watch, with no tension, watching, calmed and active. To compose a finished, well-constructed poem, the mind is obliged to make projects that prefigure it. But for a simple poetic image, there is no project; a flicker of the soul is all that is needed. In this issue's essays, the mind can be both calm and active analogous to the poetic reverie of Bachelard's phenomenology of the soul. We did not explicitly intend this, but the writers of the essays, also with no inclusive intention of their own, do manage to calm and activate the mind, allowing that flicker of the soul to illuminate the poetry of the medicine of place. One poetic soul-flicker reads, "Wisdom returns—not to stay but to retrieve." (Hansen, 1) At the end of his SSCS Presidential Address on biblical aesthetics and revelation, Pieter de Viellers writes: "Aesthetics, it is suggested here, provides a [End Page vii] way back into the heart of the biblical message as a living source of faith"—its soul-flicker is a way back to the heart, that like wisdom, returns not to stay, but to retrieve. Beauty residesat the intersection ofHarmony and Utility. (Hansen, 49) In her essay on Henri Nouwen, Ann Astell notes that commentators on Nouwen's life and writing often treat his commitment to celibacy narrowly, as a necessary aspect of his priesthood. She writes, "In his essay 'Celibacy,' however, Nouwen actually argues for an expansive understanding of celibacy with important implications for all Christians, married and unmarried, straight and gay." As Nouwen sees it, "'Celibacy' is an openness to God of which sexual abstinence is only one manifestation." To what avail the allying ofoneself with a hundred causes,while the thistle in one's own backyard goes to seed? (Hansen, 137) How smallthe part of our wearinessthat cannot be tracedto having gone aroundthe things we shouldhave been above. (Hansen, 152) Kathleen Fisher writes of the life of Saint Brigid, showing how ancient animals provide a moral and theological corrective to environmental exploitation. She notes, "Brigid's animal companions provoke us to reexamine our place in the universe. The menagerie of foxes, wolves, and dogs all witness to God's work of continuous creation and remind us that humanity is not the only or single best source of divine revelation." How one's soul does ache nowfor those places that invite whisper. (Hansen, 101) Surely none but a God on our sidewould place so many cluesin plain view. (Hansen, 85) [End Page viii] In his essay on integral ecology as ecological spirituality, Jean-Pierre Fortin mines Pope Francis' Laudato Si', concluding that "Human beings must learn to conceive...

God you're Breaking my Heart-What is God's Response to Suffering and Evil? by Brian Grogan (review)

in the Brexit negotiations. Are nationalist politicians in Northern Ireland showing a similar commitment to operating their own part of the Agreement? It is worth remembering what all parties are committed to. The Agreement says: ‘We pledge that we will, in good faith, work to ensure the success of each and every one of the arrangements to be established under this agreement’. Given the difficulties there were in agreeing a budget for Northern Ireland, and given the collapsing of the Executive because of disagreements about the Irish language and Ulster Scots, one has to question the commitment of both Sinn Féin and the DUP to the Agreement and their respect for their pledge. This is a serious book, and will prompt readers to examine their preconceptions about a topic that will be with us for years to come. John Bruton was Taoiseach from 1994 to 1997 and has spoken and written extensively on Brexit. God you’re Breaking my Heart – What is God’s Response to Suffering and Evil?, Brian Grogan SJ (Dublin: Messenger Publications, 2016). The opening words of this well-written and very readable book claim that it has been a ‘struggle’ for the author to write and will be a similar experience for us readers. No surprises here. From time immemorial, people of religious faith have been grappling with the question of how a God of love can allow horrible events and tragedies to happen. I am reminded of what Brian Doyle wrote in his book on the heart, The Wet Engine. In a chapter entitled Imo Pectore – ‘in the innermost recesses of the heart’ – he reminds us that ‘our hearts are not pure: our hearts are filled with need and greed as much as with love and grace; and we wrestle with our hearts all the time. How we wrestle is who we are’. Brian Grogan is, however, more than a very helpful wrestling coach for us in this book. Yes, we have to wrestle with some big questions – after all, evil is a ‘dark mystery’– but the author provides some very helpful perspectives to enable us to do this. He gives us the image of the jigsaw puzzle as a framework by which we can locate the issues. In describing evil as a ‘poisonous gas’, we can understand how it permeates our lives in the most lethal and subtle fashion. Faithful to the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola, however, Fr Grogan invites the reader to see God as labouring for us to bring good out of Autumn 2018: Book Reviews Studies • volume 107 • number 427 391 evil. Indeed, such is the strength of his argument that ‘for God there are no dead persons’, I sense that it must be so much more difficult for people of no or little religious faith to wrestle with these perennial problems. Sprinkled throughout the book are a number of inspiring stories of people who have faced great suffering in their lives and emerged stronger from the ordeal. Stories are a bridge to the experience of others, of course, and they stretch our hearts. It was the great Jewish author Elie Wiesel who said once that ‘God made man because he loves stories’. In Bread for the Journey, Dutch Catholic Priest Henri Nouwen wrote something similar: ‘This is what life is about. It is being sent on a trip by a loving God, who is waiting at home for our return and is eager to watch the slides we took and hear about the friends we made when we travel with the eyes and ears of the God who sent us ... ’Accordingly, Brian Grogan shares with us diverse heart-rending stories that include: the young girl Malala who survived an assassination attempt on her life in Pakistan for daring fearlessly to promote the education of women; psychologist Viktor Frankl who wrote so beautifully about salvation through love following his experiences inAuschwitz; Etty Hillesum, the young Dutch Jew, who did not survive the savagery of a Second World War concentration camp, but whose spirit of victory was never broken; the celebration of Mass in the devastation of Belsen; Sister Josephine Bakhita who persisted through many years of slavery to...

Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith. By HenriNouwen with Michael J.Christensen and Rebecca J.Laird. Pp. xx, 172, London, S.P.C.K., 2011, £12.99.Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit. By HenriNouwen with Michael J.Christensen and Rebecca J.Laird. Pp. xxx, 162, London, S.P.C.K., 2011, £12.99.Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life. By HenriNouwen with Michael J.Christensen and Rebecca J.Laird.

The Heythrop JournalVolume 58, Issue 5 p. 846-848 BOOK REVIEW Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith. By Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird. Pp. xx, 172, London, S.P.C.K., 2011, £12.99. Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit. By Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird. Pp. xxx, 162, London, S.P.C.K., 2011, £12.99. Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life. By Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird. Pp. xxx, 226, London, S.P.C.K., 2013, $10.00. Luke Penkett, Luke Penkett Monastère de la Sainte-Présence, BrittanySearch for more papers by this author Luke Penkett, Luke Penkett Monastère de la Sainte-Présence, BrittanySearch for more papers by this author First published: 02 August 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/heyj.12695Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume58, Issue5September 2017Pages 846-848 RelatedInformation

Aspects of Men’s Sorrow: Reflection on Phenomenological Writings about Grief

This paper explores aspects of grief in men, integrating insights from recent scholarship on the grief of men and bereavement studies with male subjects. The paper draws on the phenomenological theory of Max van Manen, in particular van Manen’s theory of ‘phenomenological writing’. This theory is used to explore three important autobiographical accounts of grief: C. S. Lewis’s volume A Grief Observed (1963), a memoir Lewis wrote at the time of the death of his wife; Nicholas Wolterstorff’s important and still widely read volume Lament for a Son (1987) describing his personal wounding at the death of his son in a mountain-climbing accident; and Henri Nouwen’s writings on the death of his mother (the first, In Memoriam (1980), is a journal of Nouwen’s experiences of her death, and the second, A Letter of Consolation (1982), is a letter to his father). This paper depicts aspects of men’s grief in conversation with contemporary scholarship in men’s grief studies and theoretical scholarship on grief. The paper offers further insight into the complex reality of men’s grief and explores some of the fundamental experiences of men who are mourning the loss of a loved one. The article concludes with a description of potential mourning strategies for men who are grieving and offers a perspective on the eventual transformation of grief into solace.

Introduction: “Deboxing” the Ecumenical Box

Introduction: “Deboxing” the Ecumenical Box

The Spirituality of the Desert

In this article, three relatively recent works of popular spirituality are discussed with a focus on the appropriation of the Apophthegmata Patrum, the sayings of the desert fathers (and mothers). It is shown that such appropriation implies a complex dynamic of breaching and bridging as the critical, “breaching”, voice of the desert is called upon to bridge the gap between antiquity and modernity. The process of appropriation implies both the selection of specific texts and a favourable reading of the same. It is also informed by the formal training as well as the personal experience of the respective authors: Henri Nouwen, Anselm Grün, and Kathleen Norris. As the oscillation between ressourcement and aggiornamento is brought to bear on the congenial transplanting of ancient wisdom to the (post-)modern world, it becomes apparent that in these spiritual bestsellers the more problematic aspects of the desert are hardly ever breached themselves.

Broken wholeness: A critical analysis of Henri JM Nouwen’s spirituality of vulnerability and its possible value for the current discourse on health and wholeness.

This essay investigates whether the counter-cultural spiritual formation theology of Henri Nouwen could make a significant contribution to the current discourse on an inclusive, gender-equitable, spirituality-based approach to holistic health. Three main relationships feature in the majority of Nouwen’s works: the relationship to self, the relationship to others and the relationship to God. This foundational framework of Nouwen is used to structure this inquiry into the possible enduring value of certain core concepts that Nouwen developed within his triad of ‘movements’ toward wholeness. In his thinking about the movement of Reaching Out to our Fellow Human Beings, the concept of Vulnerability emerges as a key component of his theology and it will be the focus of this article. In a second article the value of Nouwen’s seminal thinking on Embodiment (the movement of Reaching Out to our Innermost Self) and in a third his lifelong engagement with Mystery (the movement of Reaching Out to our God) will also be brought into discussion with current thinking.

’N narratiewe teologiese verkenning van negatiewe koronêre vatomleidingsoperasieuitkomste: ’n chirurgiese hermeneutiek

Negative outcomes of coronary bypass operations not only have an important impact on the patient and family, but also have an influence on the cardiac surgeon on many levels. Within a specific surgical context and from a tradition of faith, interwoven narratives present the possibility of an interdisciplinary conversation between medical science and theology. By following an auto-ethnographic approach, an invitation is offered to participate in sharing the surgeon’s database as a new hermeneutic text. Fellow cardiac surgeons on a national level are involved by way of a Delphi research model, providing for a collective tracing of God’s involvement in surgical outcomes. In a process of a reinterpretation of negative surgical outcomes, Henri Nouwen’s three poles of a spiritual movement can lead to spiritual transformation. Bearing physiological barriers and lifestyles in mind, as well as God’s involvement, the patient and surgeon can in a new manner reflect on possible negative outcomes following operative procedures.

Welcoming the Stranger: Anatheism and L'Arche

In his book Anatheism, Richard Kearney argues for God to be imagined as a stranger and a guest, a God who comes unexpectedly into mundane reality. As a potential host, the human person may freely say yes in hospitality or no in hostility to this divine stranger, a hospitality or hostility practised in encounters with the everyday strangers of life, such as marginalized populations. As an exemplar, Kearney offers Jean Vanier's vision for L'Arche, a global network of communities that live in solidarity with the developmentally disabled. But Kearney provides only a start for a theological dialogue with L'Arche's experience. In order to further refine this conversation between Kearney and L'Arche, I consider questions about the limits of hospitality in the context of L'Arche. What are, for example, necessary boundaries between guest and host? When does uncritical hospitality become problematic? After a discussion of Kearney's anatheism and the writings of Vanier, Henri Nouwen, and others, I argue for the necessity of judiciously drawn boundaries so as to promote a healthy relationship between the disabled person and the assistant, a relationship that hopefully has become one of friendship. This article, then, confronts the task of discerning the limits to Kearney's paradigm, and L'Arche's practice, of hospitality.

Book Review: Wil Hernandez, Henri Nouwen and Spiritual Polarities: A Life of Tension

Book Review: Wil Hernandez, <i>Henri Nouwen and Spiritual Polarities: A Life of Tension</i>

Goths and God

Goth subculture is theologically interesting as a form of cultural expression which co-opts religious language and iconography to engage existential themes of darkness, suffering, and death. Goth’s use of Christian imagery is frequently blasphemous and provocative, but also articulates a commitment to core values of individuality, tolerance, and a reflective engagement with issues of suffering and pain which is life-enhancing rather than life-denying. Goth is also regarded by many participants and analysts as having a spiritual dimension expressed through its post-Christian co-opting of religious imagery. In this respect Goth subculture finds resonance with aspects of Christian tradition, as exemplified by Walter Brueggemann’s interpretation of the prophetic tradition, or Henri Nouwen’s concept of the Wounded Healer. Goth subculture thus offers intriguing prospects for theological engagement with a Christian tradition which finds itself increasingly in a subcultural position vis-à-vis the cultural mainstream.