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Home Tonight: Further Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son - Softcover

Nouwen, Henri J. M.

 
9780385524445: Home Tonight: Further Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0385524447 ISBN 13: 9780385524445
Verlag: PRH Christian Publishing, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Home Tonight follows the path of Henri Nouwen’s spiritual homecoming. More than three years prior to writing his great classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, Nouwen suffered a personal breakdown followed by a time of healing solitude when he encountered Rembrandt’s famous painting. Within his solitude he reflected on and identified with the parable’s characters and experienced profound and inspiring life lessons.

This captivating book was created from never-before-published materials that formed the basis of the small workshop inspired by Nouwen’s intimate encounter with Rembrandt’s painting. Readers are led to welcome their unique Belovedness through practices of “spiritual listening,” journaling, and communing with God, thus connecting personally with the unique, unconditional love of the One who created them. Home Tonight is a practical guide for the inner journey home.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

HENRI J. M. NOUWEN (1932–1996) was a Catholic priest who taught at several theological institutions and universities in the United States. He spent the final years of his life teaching and ministering to the mentally and physically disabled at L’Arche Daybreak community in Toronto, Canada.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Inspired by Rembrandt's famous painting "The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen embarked on a long spiritual journey in search of the place within where God has chosen to dwell. He shared his deeply personal meditations in "The Return of the Prodigal Son, a spiritual classic that interweaves elements of art history, memoir, midrash, and self-help. It has sold more than 300,000 copies and its popularity continues to rise ten years after its original publication.
RETURNING: REFLECTIONS ON THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON grew out of a series of lectures Nouwen presented as he immersed himself further in the desire to understand and embrace the meaning of the father's challenge to love his son and the son's challenge to receive that love. In thoughtful, incisive analyses of each character, Nouwen brings the parable to life and brilliantly illuminates the nature of what it means to love and to be loved.
Elegantly packaged and affordably priced, RETURNING: REFLECTIONS ON THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON is the perfect holiday gift for readers familiar with Nouwen's writings (more than two million copies of his books are currently in print), as well as those discovering his ageless wisdom for the first time.

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1
from loneliness to l'arche
When I was at Harvard teaching about Jesus to hundreds of people from all over the world, I was miserable. It was then that I unconsciously touched the strong voice from my childhood that spoke to me about the simple way of Jesus. I began to wonder if my proclaiming the Gospel wasn't the best way of losing my very spirit and my connection with the Divine in my life. Harvard is a very ambitious institution, interested in the best and the brightest, in power, upward mobility, political influence, and economic success. Talking about Jesus there wasn't easy and I felt pressure to adopt the model of the university, to become more competitive and to "make it" as a professor in that environment. Separated by death from the loving relationship with my mother, I also felt very lonely, detached in prayer, unable to respond to those who wanted to become my friends, and without a community around me. I knew that I had to do something, but I felt desperate because I didn't know what to do. I began to ask Jesus in times of prayer for directions out of my pain.
One morning in my little apartment a knock came at the door. The little woman standing on the step smiled at me. "Hello," I said. "What are you doing here so early in the morning?"
"Well," she answered, "my name is Jan Risse."
"What can I do for you?"
"Well, I've come to bring you greetings from Jean Vanier."
Now the name Jean Vanier was just a name for me. I admired his communities, called L'Arche, that welcomed people with disabilities, and I had even mentioned Jean Vanier in one of my books. But I had never met him. So again I said to Jan Risse, "What can I do for you?"
She continued to smile and replied, "Well, I come to bring greetings from Jean Vanier."
"Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. So, what is it that you really come for?" I asked.
"Well, I come to bring greetings from Jean Vanier."
Conscious of my busy day ahead and hoping to bypass the small talk, I said, "Did you want me to give a lecture somewhere, or give a seminar, or a talk? What can I do for you?" She looked at me and suggested that I invite her to come in! I stood aside and said, "Sure, you can come in, but I have a class and then I have a meeting and I'm completely tied up until suppertime."
In my living room she turned and said, "OK, that's fine. You go off and I'll be fine right here until your return." Thus, she came in and I left for the better part of the day. Upon my return in the early evening I gazed at my room. The table was covered with a white linen cloth and beautifully set with candles, a bottle of wine, fine china, and flowers in the center. Astonished I exclaimed, "What's this?"
"Oh, I thought you and I could have dinner together," she casually replied.
"But where did you find all these beautiful things?" I asked.
"From your own cupboard!" she said, pointing to the buffet. "You must not look around your own house very often!" She had created this wonderful dinner for the two of us with candles and wine--from my own house!
I found her a room on campus and she stayed for three days. We had a few visits and she came to my classes and then she left. Her last words to me were "Remember, Jean Vanier sent his greetings."
I sat in my chair and said to myself, "Something is happening. This visit wasn't for nothing." But then nothing happened for many, many months until the phone rang one day and Jean Vanier was on the other end of the line. "Henri," he said, "I'm on a retreat here in Chicago and I was thinking of you. Is there any chance you could come and join us here?"
I hastened to reply, "Jean, I have already given a number of retreats this year."
Jean answered, "I'm not asking you to give the retreat. I'm here on a retreat with a number of people from L'Arche worldwide, and I just thought you might like to be here to pray with us. We're all in silence, so you don't have to worry about talking to lots of people. You and I could visit and it might be a rest for you."
Almost immediately the same sense that something important was happening prompted me to drop everything and go to Chicago for several days. Nobody was talking, but more than fifty people were together there for conferences, meals, sharing, and worship. Apart from a daily visit with Jean in which I shared my angst in Harvard, I enjoyed a silent retreat with people from L'Arche around the world. When it was time to leave I felt rested as well as challenged by something Jean Vanier had said to me in passing at one point: "Perhaps our people [i.e., people with disabilities who live in L'Arche] could offer you a home."
That one sentence touched a chord in me and seemed like a prophetic call, so I visited Jean in his L'Arche home just north of Paris the next time I went to Europe. I felt relaxed with the people with disabilities and in general I experienced peace, rest, and safety in the community. I knew Harvard wasn't the place for me, so I resigned at the end of the year and took a writing sabbatical in Jean's community at Trosly. While I was there, the L'Arche Daybreak community in Toronto, Canada, called me to come there for three years as their pastor and I said "yes" to their invitation.
The following year I found a wonderful home at Daybreak, and there completed the first part of my journey from loneliness to L'Arche. But it was a surprise to discover that there was still a way to go. A long way.
In my L'Arche formation the word most used was the word "home." L'Arche is a home. Jean had said to me, "Maybe our people can offer you a 'home.' " Daybreak was saying, "Our community wants you to be pastor, and we think we can offer you a 'home.' " Because my life had always been lived alone and because of inner loneliness, that word, "home," touched me in my heart. In the competitive world of the university, "home" was not a significant word. "Institution," "success," "financial gain," and "power" obliterate the concepts of "community," "intimacy," and "togetherness."
Because I was longing for belonging and a sense of home, I came to L'Arche filled with new hope of finding fulfillment. It was a shock for me during the first three years at L'Arche to gradually realize that "home" might mean something other than what my heart craved and my flesh desired. I was under the illusion that home was the pure experience of warmth, intimacy, and affection, and at the beginning there was a lot of that. But the longer I lived at Daybreak the more I realized that I might have to give up home in order to find it. While living with handicapped people and their assistants at Daybreak I sensed that the Lord was inviting me to something that I was certainly not ready to live.
As I lived longer in the Daybreak community old demons around my need for affection revisited me, and I began to find it difficult to love freely without being selfish and demanding. I sensed myself going into a dark tunnel leading to a second loneliness unlike anything I had ever lived before. I don't have many words to describe what happened to me, but the story of the prodigal son will help me unwrap for you the gift and spiritual significance of this, my journey.
Reading the story and studying the painting of the prodigal son brought me to recognize that there is a younger child in me that needs conversion, and there is an elder sibling in me that needs conversion as well. Most importantly, however, I realized there is a father, a parent, that needs to be first revealed in me and then claimed by me,...

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Verlag
PRH Christian Publishing
Erscheinungsdatum
2009
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0385524447
ISBN 13 
9780385524445
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
160
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
CMN Printpool Inh. Mathis Neumann
https://www.also.com/ec/cms5/en_6000/

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