Download PDF Life of the Beloved Spiritual Living in a Secular World Henri J M Nouwen Books

Product details Paperback 160 pages Publisher The Crossroad Publishing Company; Anniversary edition (October 1, 2002) Language English ISBN-10 0824519868

Life of the Beloved Spiritual Living in a Secular World Henri J M Nouwen Books Reviews

• Nowen's book, Life of the Beloved, is filled with many inspirational thoughts. On p. 36 he states"Listening to the voice {of the Beloved} with great inner attentiveness, I hear at my center words that say, " I have called you by name from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours.You are my Beloved, on you my favor rest.I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother's womb.I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace." Throughout the text Nowen calls us to a deep and abiding relationship with our God. He has done the work in his own soul and it is very evident in the text. He does not impose his beliefs but rather calls the person to make the choice for themselves. The seduction of the Beloved is strong and real for many who take seriously their relationship with God. Nouwen provides us with prayers of contemplation for us to ponder/pray and finally act. At 156 pages it is a great source of solace and joy!
• How often do we long for someone to walk beside us, as Jesus did with his disciples on the road to Emmaus, and interpret scripture for us…tell us how to apply it to real everyday lives? We ponder the words from the Bible. We read interpretations by theologians and spiritual seekers. We flinch when we feel condemned. We're comforted when we feel our lives are, at least for a moment, in synch with our understanding of God’s will. Yet we remain hungry…hungry for spiritual truth and guidance. This book was, for me, spiritual nourishment to help assuage that hunger.
  
  I recently discovered Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996) (pronounced Henry Now’-in), prolific spiritual writer, priest, professor, and pastor, and his teachings are like water for a thirsty soul. Nouwen espouses this message We are beloved by God, and if we truly understand and believe that, it will change the way we live our lives.
  
  The book was intended to be a letter to a Jewish New York intellectual friend of Nouwen’s named Fred, whom he met when Fred interviewed Nouwen while teaching at Yale Divinity School. They formed an unlikely bond and became lifelong friends, sharing each other’s deepest longings, fears, and doubts. After some years of knowing each other, Fred asked Nouwen to say something about the Spirit that his friends and he “could hear.” As Nouwen stated in his prologue “He was asking me to respond to the great spiritual hunger and thirst that exist in countless people who walk the streets of big cities.” This book is the result of Fred’s request, and its tone is indeed that of a dear friend talking intimately and warmly to a “fellow-traveler searching for life, light and truth.”
  
  The heart of Henri Nouwen’s teaching in this book is his conviction that regardless of our religious tradition, we are beloved by God, but our ability to share that gift of belovedness with others is only as great as our ability to claim it for ourselves. Why is it always easier to believe someone else is beloved by God than to believe I am? Nouwen believes “self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life, because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” He speaks of listening for that voice and believes once we hear it, we will keep trying to hear it ever more clearly. “Like discovering a well in the desert, once you have touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper.”
  
  So Nouwen believes the most important spiritual journey of our lives involves claiming the truth of our belovedness and living into that truth by becoming the beloved…”letting truth of our Belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say or do.” To do this, we must explore ways the Holy Spirit moves in our lives. He believes we become the Beloved of God when we
  
  1) claim that we are taken.
  
  2) know that we are blessed.
  
  3) acknowledge that we are broken.
  
  4) submit to being given.
  
  Each of these four ways is explored beautifully and helpfully in simple terms, with real life examples. He speaks in the context of natural cycles and has a truly moving reflection on the relationship between life and death. “As the Beloved, I am called to trust that life is a preparation for death as a final act of giving.” He distinguishes between a “good death” and a “bad death.” Without being syrupy or unrealistic about the pain of death and loss, he speaks convincingly of our lives being like a seed that must die to bear fruit. “How different would our life be were we truly able to trust that it multiplied in being given away! How different would our life be if we could but believe that every little act of faithfulness, every gesture of love, every word of forgiveness, every little bit of joy and peace will multiply and multiply as long as there are people to receive it…and that—even then—there will be leftovers!”
  
  LifeBelovedBookCoverOne fascinating insight I gleaned from this book’s pages is the notion that there is a distinction between talents and gifts, and that sometimes—perhaps often—our true gifts are buried beneath our talents. “We may have only a few talents, but we have many gifts. Our gifts are the many ways in which we express our humanity. They are part of who we are friendship, kindness, patience, joy, peace, forgiveness, gentleness, love, hope, trust, and many others. These are the true gifts we have to offer to each other.” That is something I’ll be thinking about for a long time.
  
  Ironically, as Nouwen relates in the epilogue, the book did not seem to resonate with Fred and his friends as much as Nouwen had hoped it would. For him, “it was writing for the ‘converted’ and not for truly secular people.” It did, in fact, appeal to thousands of Christian pilgrims who struggle through life trying to apply the Christian principles they’ve learned to the situations they encounter day in and day out.
  
  It certainly resonated with me.
  
  So without Fred, he would never have written the book, but it turned out to be more helpful to believers than to non-believers. “It is the mystery of God using his secular friends to instruct his disciples.”
• Nouwen is a brilliant man and an authentic struggling Christian. He has much to offer the reader in provoking self-reflection and defining himself in the Christian community.
  
  He takes some OT passages, about God knowing us long before we were physically formed and born. And of course Catholic doctrine for him. His comments have provoked me to consider my position a bit more...I am not a big pro-choice person, and I do believe that life in-utero is still life. But I am also a physician and have seen consequences of children born with anencephaly (no brain) or very severe defects which may challenge the marriage of the parents, and the child. Many things can be fixed even by surgery on the fetus in-utero....but many still cannot. For these and for other things like rape and incest I strongly disagree with the absolutist Catholic position. Of the whole book, these few comments bothered me maybe the most.
• Though the book was written as a lengthy letter to a friend, Nouwen explains how we are chosen, blessed, broken, and given to the world as God's beloved, a chapter devoted to each aspect of being a Christian, with a seventh chapter on living as the beloved of the Creator. An interesting epilogue celebrates the deepening friendship resulting from his friend's reading, but regretting that he did not convert his atheist reader of the existence and love of Nouwen's God
• Many years ago I realize you cannot teach me to be a carpenter unless I learn the language. Margie Borg helped me to see that to be a Christian you got to learn the language. Free was asking the wrong question. What he wanted to know required him to learn the language of Christianity. Then he had to apply it to his secular words and world. Nouwin could not make Christian language into secular language Free had to put the to together and decide which made sense to him. He could not choose between God and s Secular with both to consider. Disciples are learners. The is what Free and Nouwin are doing . Thank you Brother Nouwin.
• Especially NOW!
  While I am a serious book junkie ---
  I find that some books are so renewing
  of the spirit that having a copy in the CD
  format allows me to revisit again and again
  certain topics that speak to the moment...
  
  This... is Nouwen speaking about brokenness
  as blessing and prelude to being able to love
  as we are loved.
  The 4 themes... Chosen Blessed Broken Given
  come to us in the Sermon on the Mount and
  then again on Holy Thursday...
  
  And today... in the evening news...
  Ebola, Ferguson, Gaza, refugees, drought...
  I have looked into the heart of a refugee whose
  life journey is beyond all imagining... and then
  this small smile begins and the words that are
  whispered... God is good, all the time... as spoken
  as the deeper truth. I forget so easily, and Nouwen
  reminds so very well... God is good, all the time.