![]() “A simple-minded, simple-eyed commitment to God is all that counts,” Nouwen wrote. In that vein, a 1976 letter, written from Switzerland, strives to lift a friend out of a spiritual abyss. Nouwen often based his spiritual counsel on his own personal experience, specifically his feelings of inadequacy and emotional neediness. Nouwen never publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, and it is widely believed that he remained faithful to his vow of celibacy, against the advice of some friends. He had already experienced the pangs of same-sex attraction that would tug at him his entire life and would later contribute to a mental collapse. Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Selma in 1965, and his discovery of the liberation theology movement in Latin America was yet to come. By then he had already participated in the Rev. The first letter in Love, Henri was written in 1973, from Holland, when Nouwen had been a priest 16 years. “There were actual tear drops on the letter.” ![]() “There were others that I remember were tear-stained,” Earnshaw said. Of the letters that were successfully recovered, Earnshaw said, some were sent back to the archive framed, suggesting they were displayed in private homes or offices. Some correspondents have notified the Nouwen archive they intend to bequeath the letters to their children, while others have said the contents are simply too private to be shared with a wider public. Researchers are still seeking an estimated 10,000 personal letters, about two-thirds of Nouwen’s epistolary corpus.Įarnshaw said many of Nouwen’s correspondents aren’t ready to part with these “treasured precious documents” penned by Nouwen’s own hand and offering his support to people suffering broken marriages, terminal illness and spiritual desolation. The Nouwen letter recovery project, which got underway shortly after the priest’s death in 1996, is far from complete. These, along with the 3,000 duplicates, are the source of the 204 letters in the present volume. To date, some 2,000 of Nouwen’s outgoing letters that were not duplicated have been recovered from his correspondents. Only about 3,000 of Nouwen’s dictated letters were duplicated when written and form part of his archives, a collection of photos, film, audio, documents, drafts, clerical vestments and ephemera housed at the University of Toronto. The quest to recover these letters is a story unto itself, as most of Nouwen’s epistles still remain in the possession of his far-flung correspondents. “This generosity of spirit coming from him was consistent over decades to the widest variety of people.” “People wrote to him in crisis, they were really suffering,” said Earnshaw, who worked as the Nouwen archivist for 16 years until earlier this year. “For me, the astounding thing (about the letters) is their volume” the number of people, the different types of people “and the consistency with which Henri generously wrote back,” said Gabrielle Earnshaw, the project editor who compiled and selected the letters in the volume. And he wrote from L’Arche Daybreak, a community near Toronto here, Nouwen “now approaching celebrity status in religious circles,” bathed, fed and clothed severely developmentally disabled residents for the final decade of his life. He wrote from a hospital bed while convalescing from a freak car accident that he says nearly killed him. He wrote from the Abbey of the Genesee in New York, where he spent time among Trappist monks, baking bread, performing physical labor and praying for long hours. He wrote from Lima, Peru, where he served in a poor barrio with priests from the Maryknoll order. Nouwen wrote letters from the Yale Divinity School and Harvard Divinity School, academic posts he would later abandon for a missionary life. “But I hope that you are willing to receive these reflections as coming from a friend who deeply respects you, sincerely loves you and eagerly wants to offer you support and friendship during these hard times.” “My own life is so broken and tainted with sin and ambiguities that I do not have the clarity of vision that is required,” Nouwen wrote to the beleaguered Hatfield in 1984. Mark Hatfield, the Oregon Republican investigated on ethics violations Fred Rogers of “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood” and Joan Kroc, the philanthropist and third wife of the founder of the McDonald’s hamburger empire. ![]() This volume contains Nouwen’s letters to then-Sen.
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