read only two of Nouwen's books so far, and just from those I can say his books warrant and and maybe ard reading.
His insights are rich, dense, and provoke a lot of contemplation, This is most definitely not a book to peruse through, but something to meditate on, I love the title it perfectly describes the subject of this marvelous short book, People in helping professions develop their compassion and ability to help heal others by being wounded themselves, just as Christ was wounded.
Highly recommend this book for pastors, counselors and anyone who wants to help others, I never get tired of Father Henri's work, He is very much himself a wounded healer, His capacity to reach into his own soul and life experience to provide his audience with tremendous depth and richness is unparalleled.
Highly recommend. Sometimes I really understood what the author going for, sometimes the book challenged my personal outlooks and beliefs and sometimes it was a really challenging read.
I feel like this book really makes you think, even though its examples and disjointed nature make it a bit difficult to access.
I enjoyed my time with it, sometimes,
However, it might not be for everyone, This short book focuses on the paradox of ministry in a society of alienated individuals and the need to embrace our own frailty to make ourselves useful to others.
I found it very useful in unwinding some myths I had accepted about ministry, I feel like this book is one Ill need to read a few times to appreciate the depth of it.
I really loved chapter four, Ministry by a Lonely Minister, So simple but deep to minister in such a way that we allow God to use our own suffering to be a place where we can be truly hospitable to a person, and have them feel comfort enough to share their own suffering.
I came to Henri Nouwen on the recommendation of Fred Rogers, and I was not disappointed, This slim volume is somewhat dated I was pleasantly surprised to see two King Crimson songs quoted in the second essay, for instance, but its central message is timeless: that the very experiences that wound us most deeply are also those from which we can draw the greatest strength.
Nouwen does not romanticize suffering it is not suffering itself that is beautiful, but rather what human beings can do with it.
Nouwen uses the metaphor of the Grand Canyon: a scar on the landscape in one sense, and yet in another sense a place of almost unbearable beauty.
I use the metaphor of a bog: nobody likes to get stuck in a bog, It's fetid and rank and sometimes it feels as though you'll never escape, But a bog is also the place where coal forms and coal burns, Indeedand this is Nouwen's central thesisit is through facing our own hurts and fears that we can begin to help others face theirs not to make the hurts and fears disappear, but to be fully present with them in the midst of their darkness and, with the coal of our own experience, to be for them a fire in the night.
This is up there with "Reaching Out" as one of Nouwen's books that remind the reader that he truly can do it all when it comes to Christian spirituality and faith.
The book diagnosed current issues that humans face in their worldviews and identifies explicit remedies that a "minister" can partake in to heal these issues.
This was a book on anthropology and Christianity's humble approach to meeting the hurts of the world, The dynamics of a "minister" and their own suffering plays a huge role in serving others, Minister is in quotes because this is not explicit to the profession of a minister but a call to all Christians
For a long time I was pretty bored with Nouwen after reading his wellknown, spiritual books.
Books like this remind me that he has put in the work of studying the world and how to offer sentiments to help the situation.
I think I will read those books with more weight to them now, I set out to read Henri Nouwen'spage book thinking I would finish it in a few days.
Instead, as always with Nouwen, it took me several weeks to read, Every time I picked it up I found myself flipping back through my previous reading, and every time I set it down I found myself spending days processing the few pages I just completed.
Nouwen is, at heart, a philosopher and a psychologist and his writing is organized according to a logical formula.
Some may struggle against that structure or with that jargon, but if you can move past it you will find beautiful truth within and an amazing understanding of our very current culture despite the fact that the book was written almostyears ago.
Nouwen seemed to anticipate the hopelessness that prevails in our present society, the growing sense among our youth that they cannot create a better future for their world, and to that hopeless he encourages us to move out of the old formula for ministry that has us "thinking in terms of largescale organization, getting people together in churches, schools and hospitals, and running the show as a circus director" and and realize that "pastoral conversation is not merely a skillful use of conversation techniques to manipulate people into the Kingdom of God, but a deep human encounter in which a man is willing to put his own faith and doubt, his own hope and despair, his own light and darkness at the disposal of others who want to find a way through their confusion and touch the solid core of life.
" The overarching theme of the book resides in the following passage:"Jesus has given this story a new fullness by making his own broken body the way to health, to liberation and new life.
Thus like Jesus, he who proclaims liberation is called not only to care for his own wounds and the wounds of others, but also to make his wounds into a major source of his healing power.
"
As Nouwen writes, it is precisely in this hopeless culture that the "wounded healer" can make his life and his own suffering available to others, and "making one's own wounds a source of healing, therefore, does not call for a sharing or superficial personal pains, but for a constant willingness to see one's one pain and suffering as rising from the depth of the human condition which all men share.
" Perhaps then we too, as Nouwen concludes, can understand that ", . . the imitation of Christ does not
mean to live a life like Christ but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his.
" left me breathless by the end, i felt like some of his social analysis esp re: generational difference isnt exactly razor sharp, especially reading now.
But its near irrelevant considering his overflowing heart that can be felt throughout this book, And he references king crimson and george jackson, as a white christian chaplain writing inWhats not to love!
Anyway, as a Buddhist Multifaith chaplain, this will serve as a resource throughout the rest of my life, one Im sure to read over and over.
damn. Nouwen's discussion of what makes a good Christian minister and by extension a good Christian are extremely important today.
His comments about loneliness are also very thought provoking, A stirring little book that moved me towards more affection for the Trinity, I imbibed this book slowly, like wine, because it is heady and rich, Thoughtprovoking. Especially enjoyed the chapter case study on a sick and dying man being visited by a pastor, Also feel great respect for Nouwen when I learned that he spent his last few years on earth ministering to disabled people he believed what he preached.
The book looked like a quick read due to its briefpagelength, but this was deceptive, I feel Nouwen's message in the first half of the book, while still relevant, represents the society and culture of my parents' generation.
"We have lost faith in technology," he writes, This is the opposite of the truth for Generation Y and whatever the subsequent generations have been labeled.
My peers put faith in little beyond science and technology, Writing in, Nouwen perhaps saw an age that used technology to send young men in helicopters to napalm and Agent Orange a country they didn't understand.
Dismal technology indeed, but the personal computer was soon to reinvigorate the culture on that viewpoint,
The second half of the book is the relevant half for a modern audience, Nouwen's insight that we can all share out of our woundednessthe idea that loneliness is elementalmake it worth reading.
The idea that we must live and die on our own convictions, and yet others must do the same, points to the soundness of this apparently paradoxical idea.
Why must we be lonely Because we must be ourselves, accepting God and life and fear and love as they come to us.
Why is loneliness essential If one cannot endure it, one cannot be free, And Nouwen's point that we as wounded healers allow others into our space, saying, "I too am alone, come and sit with me,"it is a strange one, but one that I think speaks to the intersection of free will and our ability to help others.
A very helpful read, and a needed angle on the role of the minister, The “contemporary society” of the book is of course, no longer contemporary, The insights are now about Americas grandparents, but the reader can set a trajectory and draw from Nouwens insights to form new insights about our current day.
I suppose that in many ways this type of “wounded healer” is still a needed model, I know few leaders who truly do it, especially fused with gospel hope, I would suggest that Christians who want to minister read this book and seek to update it in their own contexts.
I read this years and years ago, It changed my life. Nouwen is such a thoughtful thinker and writer, Always appreciate his teachings and the way he communicates them, Good read for anyone who is ministering to people,
“His Jesuss appearance in our midst made it undeniably clear that changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross.
” In the first section of this book on the “nuclear man” Ill be honest I wasnt sure if I would enjoy it.
A decent diagnostic of the modern man, perhaps, but it felt dry, clinical, Moving forward from there, though, Nouwen has this incredible ability to reach past a surfacelevel piety and trite answers to suffering and reach into the heart of what ails us.
The book is about being a good leader/minister, But even if that is not specifically your calling, much of what is discussed is pertinent to the ministry of being a fellowman.
I have been given a lot to contemplate, I wasn't entirely sure how to rate this one, On the one hand it is weird to read, with a lot of metaphors and flowery language, On the other it offers an interesting perspective on what it means to help people, The four chapters felt a little disconnected from each other and to me it was more like reading four individual stories that are loosely connected rather than a book on one specific topic.
A hopefilled and profoundly simple book that speaks directly to those who want to be of service in their church or community, but have found the traditional ways often threatening and ineffective.
In this book, Henri Nouwen combines creative case studies of ministry with stories from diverse cultures and religious traditions in preparing a new model for ministry.
Weaving keen cultural analysis with his psychological and religious insights, Nouwen has come up with a balanced and creative theology of service that begins with the realization of fundamental woundedness in human nature.
Emphasizing that which is in humanity common to both minister and believer, this woundedness can serve as a source of strength and healing when counseling others.
Nouwen proceeds to develop his approach to ministry with an analysis of sufferingsa suffering world, a suffering generation, a suffering person, and a suffering minister.
It is his contention that ministers are called to recognize the sufferings of their time in their own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of their service.
For Nouwen, ministers must be willing to go beyond their professional role and leave themselves open as fellow human beings with the same wounds and sufferingin the image of Christ.
In other words, we heal from our own wounds,
Filled with examples from everyday experience, The Wounded Healer is a thoughtful and insightful guide that will be welcomed by anyone engaged in the service of others.
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