Henri J. M. Nouwen - Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit

I recently returned from Toronto after spending six marvelous days with the LArche Daybreak community in Richmond Hill, where Henri Nouwen spent the last ten years of his life. It was an inspiring visit!

My journey back to New York, however, was very frustrating; LaGuardia Airport was forbidding planes to depart for New York. As a result, numerous planes were delayed and hundreds of passengers stranded. Fortunately, we were able to get on a flight to Newark, where the air traffic was less congested, but the whole experience was one of frustration. I could have flown to California in the time it took me to find my way home that night.

In Finding My Way Home, Henri Nouwen writes about journey in a very different way:

Our spiritual journey calls us to seek and find this living God of Love in prayer, worship, spiritual reading, spiritual mentoring, compassionate service to the poor, and good friends. Let us claim the truth that we are loved and open our hearts to receive Gods overflowing love poured out for us.

It sounds so simple! Our journey, then, is a journey to discover the perfect love that only God can give us.

But how do we remain faithful to this journey? The frustrations of making a spiritual journey are similar to the frustrations I felt at the Toronto airport. What do we do when our spiritual journey runs into roadblocks? When waiting makes us anxious and angry? Nouwen writes,... waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. We are encouraged to look at waiting from two perspectives: the waiting for God and the waiting of God. Most of us think more about the first perspective, but as we grow in our awareness of God waiting and longing for us, we discover the deepest love there isGods love.

Henri Nouwen is a companion on the journey for me and for countless people around the world. But for Henri, and for us, Jesus is our principal guide: We want to look with Gods eyes at our experience of brokenness, limitedness, woundedness, and frailty. We want to look at them in the way that Jesus taught us to hope that such a vision will offer us a safe way to travel on earth. If, as Henri says, the Beatitudes are a self-portrait of Jesus, they fail to describe most of us!

Nouwens theology of downward mobility is certainly not a popular one in our society, where our value is usually determined by success, popularity, and influence. Try telling an Olympic athlete that those who fail to win any medals are just as good as those who win the gold! In Finding My Way Home we find, When you win and receive a prize, you know there is somebody who lost. But this is not so in the heart of God. If you are chosen in the heart of God, you have eyes to see the chosenness of others.

Nouwen reminds us that our time on earth is very brief, but that we were loved by God before we were born and will continue to be loved by God after we die. He writes, This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love. In Finding My Way Home we discover that Gods power is not about worldly success, but about the fruitfulness and the transforming power of love. As we deepen our understanding of the power of love, we grow in freedom from fear. Our final journey home becomes an exodus in which we leave this world for full communion with God.

Henri Nouwen made his final journey home four years ago, leaving a rich legacy behind. He lived his life with his eyes and heart on Jesus, and like Jesus he lived his life faithfully, passionately, and authentically and made his life abundantly fruitful through his death. This remarkable book inspires us to walk the same path in confidence as we, too, seek to find our way home.

W ENDY W ILSON G REER

President, Henri Nouwen Society

New York City

September 2000