Five things I learned from Nouwen

1. Loneliness is a precious gift. The Christian life does not take it away but cherishes it. Christians know deeply and intuitively that there will never be a friendship, community, man or woman that can satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition. Loneliness can be claimed as a source of human understanding because, "It is very difficult if not impossible for a healthy young man to realize what it means when nobody cares whether you live or die."  It connects us with the human condition.


2. "A Christian community is therefore a healing community not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision. Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weakness becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength."

3."Perhaps the main task of the minister is to prevent people from suffering for the wrong reasons."

4."Hospitality is the ability to pay attention to the guest."

5. "We can only love because we were born out of love, we can only give because our life is a gift, and we can only make others free because we are set free by Him whose heart is greater than ours."

Henri Nouwen is unafraid to bring the personal, gritty parts of life to the surface because he fully believes that, "what is most personal is most universal." He made his life available through his writing and he is the only author I have read that rivals my dad in the amount of grace, poetry, and humility woven throughout writing.