Welcome to Nouwen Book Discussions

Please join us in a reflection on Compassion by Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill and Douglas Morrison. We are pleased to welcome back Brynn Phillips Lawrence who will guide us in an exploration of this essay on the least understood virtue of compassion. The authors challenge themselves and us with the following questions: Where do we place compassion in our lives? Is it enough to live a life in which we hurt one another as little as possible? Is our guiding ideal a life of maximum pleasure and miniumum pain? Compassion answers no.

Compassion is a book that says no to a compassion of guilt and failure and yes to a compassionate love that pervades our spirit and moves us to action.

On February 22nd begin your Lenten journey with this community of seekers. Brynn is looking forward to hearing from old friends and new!

Reading: Conclusion - Signs of Life

This has been a remarkable group! Thank you sincerely to each of you for offering and sharing of yourselves. Fortunately, we have one more week to bring things together - to try to solidify in our minds and hearts what we have learned here.

1) Henri does a great job in his conclusion of turning our eyes upon Jesus. The world is full reasons to live in the house of fear - no question. But “it is the presence of Jesus among us, real and concrete, that gives us hope” (p109). As 1 John 4:4 says, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
a) You are invited to read Matthew 8: 23-27, and write down all the reasons you have to be fearful. The ways you are saying to Jesus, “Yes, Yes… but look!”
b) Now you are invited to read John chapters 16 and 17 and write down all the reasons you have to live in the house of love. The ways Jesus is saying to you, “Yes, yes… but look!”

2) Drawing from the exercise above, a review of the book, and a review of the comments posted throughout this discussion…
a) Please share with us a summary of what you want to take with you, and apply to your life this coming year. Ideally, make it something tangible. Write it down and stick it on your bathroom mirror… and share it with us as well.

3) As we prepare ourselves for Christmas Day, and if you are keeping your eyes open, I believe you will find you are blessed by an intimate relationship, a demonstration of fecundity, and/or an experience of ecstasy.
a) Please share with us anything that comes to you this week that demonstrates what we’ve learned about intimacy, fecundity, and ecstasy in the Christian life.

Reading: Lifesigns Part three - Ecstasy
Henri describes ecstasy a third characteristic of life in the house of love, in the house of God. Isn’t it breathtaking that you have been invited, by Jesus Christ, to live in deep unshakable joy?

1) You are invited to read John 15 in entirety.
a) How does Jesus describe true intimacy?
b) How does Jesus describe fecundity?
c) If you review the first two parts of this book, do you feel comfortable that Henri’s description of intimacy and fecundity are in line with Jesus’? Why?
d) Now focus on the joy (ecstasy) that Jesus talks about here. How does Jesus instruct us to uncover and root this joy in our lives?

2) We often go to scripture in times of fear and anxiety, but what about going to scripture in times of joy, in order to celebrate!
a)Please search out and share a verse that can help you joyfully celebrate some aspect of your life today.
b) Recall a time in your life, or day, that was a moment of ecstasy (deep joy). Do your best to put your moment into words, for the edification of us all.

3) Henri writes, “When routine behavior begins to dominate our lives, and suggestions of change call forth violent resistance, fear has begun to poison the roots of our existence.” p76
a) Can you see areas in your life where God is asking you for a change? Perhaps asking you to reach out to someone, share something of yours with others, give up a comfort T.V. show in exchange for time with Him, give up a behavior that distances you from others (… etc). What kind of response does God’s prompting evoke in you?

4) A very very important theme in this book, and in the Christian life is prayer. Henri reminds us that “When Jesus describes the fearful signs preceding the coming of the Son of God, he warns his disciples not to run here and there in a panicky, rootless way, with hearts coarsened by debauchery, drunkenness, and the cares of life. He urges them to wait in unceasing prayer for the strength to survive all that is going to happen…” p 80. Indeed, that is how Jesus himself walked through both the highest and lowest points of His life!
a) Why do you think it is such a struggle to make prayer a central part of our lives?
b) What are some of your habits that you have developed to keep bringing yourself into the prayerful presence of God?

5) There is little doubt that we all long to come home to this divine joy of God-with-us. I certainly do. Yet many things so easily distract us. Henri describes habits/ committed practices in our lives that can consistently bring us home to divine joy.
a) Please share with us what you understand /have learned/or have experiences in regards to:
Prayer
Celebration
Fellowship of believers
Shared life
as means of bringing us home to the divine joy of God-with-us.

Reading: Part Two - Fecundity

This week’s reading is profound, and deeply real. Henri asks us to consider ideas, beliefs and perspectives that are very much rooted in us. He also speaks to “our deepest human potential to bring forth life” (p43). We certainly have much to think about and discuss! Don’t we all desire to bring forth “life” in some way? Yet, we often get in the way of God’s work of fruitfulness in our lives.

For those who are just joining us, may I say that these questions are meant to get you thinking… but I hope they are not overwhelming. All comments, big and small, are welcome and valued.

1) On page 45, Henri suggests that there are two main ways that fear manifests itself, and prevents fecundity in our lives. Some of us respond to fear by giving up too easily, withdrawing, closing down… sterility. Others of us respond to fears in our lives by working harder, learning more, becoming more successful… productivity.
a) Note the specific ways you respond to fearful questions in your life… how, specifically, do you live out either sterility or productivity?

2) Henri describes sterility as not “being truly alive.” He notes that many people have lost any sense of being active participants in the making of the future” (p46).
a) Can you identify with this feeling of helplessness? Or of being bored while being busy?
b) Think about ways you can/would like to make a difference in a life, in your community, in your world. This may require resuscitating a buried passion. Think about what makes your “heart come alive,” and trust that God has put that there for a purpose.
c) Search through Scripture for reminders that God has a plan for your life… and please share those scriptures here.

3) “A call to live a fruitful life does not necessarily imply a call to be productive” (p48).
a) If you look back over the last five to ten years of your life, in what areas were you fruitful, and in what areas were you simply productive?
b) Take this to God in prayer, ask him to re-orient your life towards fruitfulness… and perhaps share what He reveals to you.
c) How do you respond to other people in your life who simply are not as productive as you want them to be? Can you actively appreciate their fruitfulness?

4) Henri offers a solution to fearful productivity. He suggests we “surrender ourselves [to God] and be led to unknown and unpredictable places” and give up “our attempts to control life and take the risk to let life reveal its own inner movements” (p52&53).
a) Please share with us a story, either from Scripture, your personal life, or the life of someone you know, of true and real surrender to God. What was the result in your/their life?
b) Have you seen the healing effects of vulnerability, gratitude and care in your personal life?

5) Finally, Henri relates fecundity to mission. He notes that “one of the greatest missionary tasks is to receive the fruits of the lives of the poor, the oppressed, and the suffering as gifts offered for the salvation of the rich” (P64).
a) Do you have an experience, either at home or abroad, in which you were not able to receive the gifts of the “have-nots” due to your own compulsion to make things “better” “more efficient” “right”?
b) Do you have an experience, either at home or abroad in which you were able to receive the gifts of the “have-nots”?
Please share your own story.

As we get into the meat of the book, we start to look at what it means to live in the house of love. In these three chapters Henri explores how, ultimately, it is intimacy with Jesus that brings us into the house of love, and how fear prevents intimacy in our lives. As we explore the three parts of this book, I invite you to ask yourself how you can more deeply embrace intimacy with Jesus, and how you can release the fears that hold you back.

Please feel free to share whatever came up for you, the following questions are only meant to help stimulate your thoughts:

1) Henri, in speaking about his experience with people he fears, says “I always sense a lack of inner freedom, and a resentment toward the power they have over me” p 19. This sensation can be experienced in many relationships in our lives.
a) In order to bring to the forefront the areas of your life that can be affected, and changed, by this discussion, think of relationships in your life in which you lack inner freedom. This might be a very close relationship (in the home), a professional relationship (in the workplace) or a social relationship (”others” in your larger community). Use your discretion on whether or not you want to share your answer.
b) Have you been trying to find that intimate place of love in relationship through knowledge, competence, notoriety, success, friends, sensations, pleasure, dreams, or artificially induced states of consciousness” (p26)?

2) Henri writes “the place of intimate love is constantly threatened by fear, whether it comes from the right side, or from the left side…. but intimacy is beyond fear. The perfect love that drives out all fear is the divine love in which we are invited to participate.”
a) What are some ways/disciplines you have learned to dwell in God’s house? To claim Jesus as your home? To therefore come to trust your innermost self as being the house of God?
b) Consider how you might build a house of love for others, neither keeping others at a safe distance, nor suffocating over protection. Like Jean Vanier, can you start, in some simple way, to truly care for one or two others?

3) “We often put superhuman demands on each other, and when these demands are not met we feel hurt and rejected….” But when we live at home with God, “we can live together in this home without asking for much more than a willingness to constantly confess our weaknesses to each other and to always forgive each other” p 29
a) Do you see your closest/most consistent relationship(s) as full of superhuman demands? Or are they full of honest confessions and always forgiving?
b) Please share an experience in which a relationship you were a part of shifted from superhuman demands (perhaps critical competitive behaviour) to one of honest confession and forgiveness? How did this change come about?

4) In the latter section of this part, we discover that intimacy and solidarity are strongly correlated.
a) Where do you see the fear of the “other” in your own life?
b) How can we facilitate a shift in ourselves to be people who are acting within the house of God, ie pointing through our action to the presence of God, rather than anxiously trying to heal, restore etc on our own strength?
c) Can you recognize the ways in which the “poor” you seek to serve in fact reveal to you the true love of God? Please share an example from your own life.

Reading: Introduction

A very warm welcome to all who join this advent discussion of Lifesigns by Henri Nouwen.

I look forward to reconnecting with those who have participated in previous discussions, and to hearing from the many new participants as well. Please don’t feel shy if you are joining us for the first time - we are excited to welcome you.

This week we begin with personal introductions, along with some reflections on the Introduction. As is always the case in these discussions, my questions are offered to guide you, or spur your ideas, but you are not bound to them. Feel free to share what you see as important.

1) Please give us an introduction to who you are. You might include;
a) your first name
b) general geographic location in the world
c) how you invest your time on a day to day basis
d) what you value most in life
etc

2) Later on in the book, Henri describes Christmas as the “day of the child, awaited with prayer and repentance, contemplated with watchful attentiveness, and remembered in liturgical solemnity, joyful song, and peaceful family meals.” p 84 However, as is often the case in the Christian life, our culture really sweeps us along in the opposite direction.
a) Take some time to reflect on how you want to celebrate Christmas this year.
b) Please share simple traditions (old and new) on how we can make Christmas truly a celebration of the Christ child

3) In the introduction Henri talks about how fear dominates most of our lives. We are always asking fearful questions, which lead to more fearful questions.
a) Take a moment to think about the fearful “if” or “how” questions that came to your mind this past week. Ideally write them down, but at least just think of a few.
b) If you look at one or two questions that came up, can you find the root fear in them?
c) How do you see fear based questions play out in the lives around you? Society at large?
d) Do you know someone who seems to live outside the house of fear? Can you tell us a bit about them?

4) Henri explains how Jesus took fearful questions and transformed them
a) Choose a “house of love” question that you want to ask yourself this advent. It should be something simple that you can start asking yourself, perhaps in place of a fearful question
For example: “Can I see the presence of God in this situation?” “What would it look like to show love in this moment?”
b) Share with us the question you chose (remember it can be very simple)

5) Again, please feel free to share any thoughts, comments, ideas or questions that have come to you through the readings or through your personal preparations for advent.

Please join us as we journey through Advent with Henri Nouwen and Brynn Phillips Lawrence as our guides. The Henri Nouwen Society is continuing its online book discussion series with an exploration of Henri Nouwen’s Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective.

Many of you know Brynn Phillips Lawrence from our previous online discussions and will be as pleased as we are to have her back to lead us with her wisdom and compassion. Brynn is the Coordinator of the Nouwen Archive Letter Project and is very much looking forward to returning to this community. Join us as we share and deepen our Advent journey. Welcome and introductions begin November 20th.

Blessings,
Maureen Wright, Resource Coordinator, Henri Nouwen Society

This book is based upon the conviction that love is stronger than fear, though it may often seem that the opposite is true. “Perfect love casts out all fear” says St. John in his first letter. In this book I hope to search for signs of this perfect love and look for ways to follow these signs. I hope to show the possibility of a spiritual movement: the movement out of the house of fear into the house of love. - Henri J.M. Nouwen, Lifesigns

Reading: none

As many have already shared, we have had a beautiful lent together. Thank you for making it so rich. This last week is simply a chance to draw some closure to the discussion. If you have any last thoughts to share, please feel free. Otherwise;

1) Please take a moment to think of all who have participated in this discussion - we have had a wonderful group!
a) I invite you to write out (and post) a prayer for all of those who have participated in this discussion. It can be a prayer of blessing or encouragement or teaching.

2) Please do offer any feedback on what was helpful about this discussion, and what could be improved.

We’ve arrived at the final chapter of the book. Henri hardly “takes it easy” in this last chapter. On the contrary, he has touched on some very important, and deeply personal topics. Yet, as Henri reminds us, the most personal is also the most universal. I am sure there will be much to share which we all have in common.

1) As throughout this discussion, we simply want to hear from you
a) What phrase or idea really stuck out to you from these chapters?

2) Henri takes some time to establish our identity and where we find our identity.
a) Take a few quiet moments to really ask yourself, “Who Am I?”
b) Journal your response. Try to be honest about it. Where do you find your worth? Share only if you feel comfortable.

3) “Prayer is the discipline of listening to that voice of [God’s] love.” p192. Yet, as we all know it can be hard to quiet our inner life and enter into prayer.
a) What sorts of messages and ideas do your noisy “inner voices” convey?
b) What are some effective ways you have found to quiet your inner life, and enter into prayer?
c) What messages does God’s voice convey when we choose to listen?

4) Henri tells us we need not be victims of “clock time.”
a) Do you feel like a victim of clock time? How do Birthdays generally make you feel?
b) Has your perspective on clock-time changed over the years? What has God taught you about this?
c) Do you think you would live your life differently, if you could see each moment as simply an opportunity to respond with all your “heart, soul, and mind to God’s love and so become true partners in the divine communion” and say “‘yes’ to God’s love”?

5) Henri writes, “Preparing ourselves for death is the most important task of life, at least when we believe that death is not the total dissolution of our identity but the way to the fullest revelation.”
a) Have you ever thought about death this way? As the most important task of life?
b) What scares you about death and dying?
c) How can we live “each day in the full awareness of being children of God, whose love is stronger than death”?
d) How can we adjust our perspective such that ‘going home’ is ultimately our strongest desire? ie that being at home with Jesus is more desirable than being at home in the world?
e) How can we minimize the fruitless fears about how we will die?

Reading:
Chapter 9: Family
Chapter 10: Relationships

I find it amazing how Henri can address huge and important topics such as Family and Relationships, and provide really helpful insights in just a couple of pages. He has certainly done this with these two chapters.

1) As always, the first and most important question is:
a) Please share what stood out to you from the readings. It could be a phrase or idea, but please tell us why you thought it was significant.

2) Henri touches on the ever important topic of family. He acknowledges that many times our relationship with our parents remains a source of bondage in our lives. He asks us to consider the power of forgiveness.
a) Take some time to ask yourself if there is anything that your parents said,did or taught you that you still feel resentful about. Of course, this is not something you need to share with the group. If you want to, please do so with care.

3) Henri also emphasizes the positive effect of gratitude in our lives, and asks us to cultivate gratitude for our family/parents.
a) Please share with us the things you love/respect/admire about your Mom or Dad. This could be one specific story that stands out in your mind, or general characteristics about them that you appreciated.

3) Henri writes “Many of us not only have parents but also are parents.” (p163).
a) If you are a parent or caregiver to children, how has raising children given you insights into the challenges your own parents faced in raising you?
b) Has the experience allowed you to feel greater compassion for some of their mistakes? *Taken from the study guide.

4) Henri points out the difference between a relationship where two people cling to each other out of personal need vs a relationship in which the two hands touch, but their love creates a hospitable space that is a sign of God’s love for humanity.
a) Have you known a couple that loved each other in such a way that their relationship seemed to affirm God’s love for you, and for humanity? How did they treat each other?
b) What practical advice can you give on how to live the daily “hard work” of love? How has it strengthened a relationship in your life?