Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective - Softcover

Nouwen, Henri J. M.

 
9780385236287: Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective
Softcover
ISBN 10: 038523628X ISBN 13: 9780385236287
Verlag: PRH Christian Publishing, 1989

Inhaltsangabe

"You cannot read Lifesigns and not be moved... This book will undoubtedly find its place among the classics of twentieth-century literature."
--Grand Rapids Press

The inspirational writings of Henri Nouwen have touched millions of readers all over the world. Much beloved as a lecturer, spiritual guide, and especially as an author, he communicated a profound message of hope that finds great resonance in today's world.

In his now classic work Lifesigns, he explores what he saw as three of the most vital aspects of his ministry. The first of these is the Gospel invitation to intimacy, which Nouwen describes as communion with God and relationship with others. The second is the call to fecundity, exhorting us to be open to a fruitful life of change and growth. And the third, the experience of ecstasy, extends the Gospel promise "that your joy may be full." Inspired by L'Arche, the worldwide network of communities where handicapped people and their assistants try to live together in the spirit of the Scriptures, Nouwen shows how these three elements offer the essential key to a life free from the domination of fear and filled instead with hope and love.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

HENRI J. M. NOUWEN was a Catholic priest who taught at several theological institutes and universities in his home country of the Netherlands and in the United States. He shared the final years of his life with people with mental and physical disabilities at L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, Canada. He died in 1996. He authored many books on the spiritual life, including Reaching Out, The Wounded Healer, and The Return of the Prodigal Son.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Best-selling author Henri Nouwen shows how three of the most vital elements of human life offer Christians the essential key to a life filled with hope and love.

Aus dem Klappentext

Best-selling author Henri Nouwen shows how three of the most vital elements of human life offer Christians the essential key to a life filled with hope and love.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

INTIMACY AND FEAR



Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy. When Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, the disciples were overcome by fear and they all "deserted him and ran away" (Matthew 26:56). And after Jesus was crucified they huddled together in a closed room "for fear of the Jews" (John 20:19). Fear makes us move away from each other to a "safe" distance, or move toward each other to a "safe" closeness, but fear does not create the space where true intimacy can exist. Fear does not create a home. It forces us to live alone or in a protective shelter but does not allow us to build an intimate home. Fear conjures either too much distance or too much closeness. Both prevent intimacy from developing.



My own experience with people whom I fear offers plenty of examples. Often I avoid them: I leave the house, move to a corner where I can remain unnoticed, or express myself in flat, noncommittal sentences. Sometimes I create a false closeness with them. I talk too long with them, laugh too loudly at their jokes, or agree too soon with their opinions. Whether I create too much distance or too much closeness, I always sense a lack of inner freedom and a resentment toward the power they have over me.



Fearful distance and fearful closeness are even more noticeable in the larger context of our lives. Prisons, mental hospitals, and refugee camps are often built far away from the places where "normal" people live, to keep the fear-evoking strangers at a safe distance. Other types of safe distance abound: safe topics to discuss, safe issues to get involved in, safe subjects to write about, safe people to invite, and so on. On the other hand, one can find the safe closeness of the clique, the sect, or the club, places where people huddle together in mutual admiration or common suspicion of the outsider. In a time like ours, when fear takes on an apocalyptic dimension, it is extremely tempting to join a small group that calls non-members useless, dangerous, or evil and offers a unique sense of belonging to those who follow the rules.

But whether through distance or closeness, fear prevents us from forming an intimate community in which we can grow together, everyone in his or her own way. When fear separates or joins us, we can no longer confess to each other our sins, our brokenness, and our wounds. How, then, can we forgive each other and come to reconciliation? Distance allows us to ignore the other as having no significance in our lives, and closeness offers us an excuse for never expressing or confessing our feelings of being hurt.

Jean Vanier, who has lived for more than twenty years with mentally and physically handicapped people, has become a keen observer of this dynamic of fear. He saw that these severely handicapped people seem like strangers living in another world, like prisoners caught behind the bars of their own deformation, like sick people who cannot help themselves, like poor and helpless beggars who make no contribution to society. He saw how they evoke fear in the hearts of those who regard themselves as normal: the "regulars," the free, the healthy, the rich, and the successful. He saw how they remind us of another reality to be avoided at all cost.

Jean Vanier realized that as long as these handicapped men and women remain "the others," they become the victims of cold institutions or of suffocating overprotection. He noticed how they are rejected as aliens or clung to as personal property. He understood that either way no true home exists for them. Their otherness robs them of the free space where they can grow according to their own pace, their own rhythm, and their own, often hidden gifts.

In 1964 Jean Vanier decided to offer a home to two handicapped people, Rapha'l and Philippe. It was a decision that took a long time to mature. After ten years in the British and Canadian navies, he had studied philosophy at the Catholic Institute in Paris and had become a professor at St. Michael's College in Toronto. But he was still unclear about his true vocation. One summer he went to Trosly-Breuil, a little French village one hour north of Paris. Under the guidance of his spiritual director Piare Thomas Philippe, who lived there as chaplain to a house for handicapped men, he decided to leave his teaching position and invite Rapha'l and Philippe, who for many years had lived in a mental institution and had no family or friends, to form a small foyer (home) with him. It was an irreversible decision. He knew he could never send these two men back to where they had come from.

He called his first foyer "l'Arche," thus indicating that he wanted his home to be like Noah's ark, a refuge for fearful people. Jean did not think about starting a movement or a large organization. He simply began caring for two people who could not manage without permanent help. But soon, people arrived from different countries to offer him help and to start new foyers. Now there are many such homes all over the world--in Canada, Australia, the United States, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, England, Ireland, Belgium, France, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and India. These homes are created to offer an intimate place to people whose handicap is different from ours.



When Jean Vanier speaks about that intimate place, he often stretches out his arm and cups his hand as if it holds a small, wounded bird. He asks: "What will happen if I open my hand fully?" We say: "The bird will try to flutter its wings, and it will fall and die." Then he asks again: "But what will happen if I close my hand?" We say: "The bird will be crushed and die." Then he smiles and says: "An intimate place is like my cupped hand, neither totally open nor totally closed. It is the space where growth can take place."



It is difficult to offer such a place, precisely because we are fearful and find it hard to let the stranger enter our place and reveal to us our own fears. But when we are willing to confess both to ourselves and the other that we too are broken, that we too have a handicap, and that we too need a place to grow, we can build a home together and offer each other an intimate place.



INTIMACY AND LOVE



If fear is the great enemy of intimacy, love is its true friend. Yet the words love and intimacy are used so casually in our heavily psychologized milieu that it requires special care to reclaim their spiritual meaning. We might be tempted to place intimate love on the same level as fear and suggest that it occupies the middle ground between "too distant" and "too close." Intimate love would thus avoid the fearful extremes of a cold distance and a suffocating closeness and offer a happy medium.



Many contemporary reflections on interpersonal relationships betray this way of thinking. They seem to say: "We need each other, but we should not lose our independence; we have a need for closeness, but we should not give up our individuality; we have a need for mutual support, but we also need enough space for ourselves." Although this is true, the suggestion is that good interpersonal relationships are the result of negotiation between partners, in which they define each other's rights as well as needs. Thus the place of intimate love is constantly threatened by fear, whether it comes from the right side or from the left.



But intimacy is not found on the level where fear resides. Intimacy is not a happy medium. It is a way of being in which the tension between distance and closeness is dissolved and a new horizon appears. Intimacy is beyond fear. Those who have experienced the intimacy to which Jesus invites us know that they no longer need to worry about getting too close or...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
PRH Christian Publishing
Erscheinungsdatum
1989
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
038523628X
ISBN 13 
9780385236287
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
128
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9780385236270: Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  0385236271 ISBN 13:  9780385236270
Verlag: Doubleday, 1986
Hardcover