Making a Difference: Henri Nouwen in Ukraine

As the war in Ukraine enters its tenth horrific week, I have been thinking, as I often do, what would Henri say? What would Henri do? He would certainly be saying and doing something.  In 1965, when Martin Luther King Jr. was marching from Selma to Montgomery, Henri drove all night from Topeka, Kansas to be with the marchers.  He spoke passionately at rallies against the Vietnam War and led protests against nuclear arms.  In 1983, he undertook an exhausting ten city tour of the United States denouncing American involvement in Nicaragua.  During the Gulf War, he joined the protestors in Washington, DC.  

Henri Nouwen had a personal connection to Ukraine, which he visited twice, once in 1993 and again in 1994.  The visits were short - just ten days each - but powerful, both for himself and for those he encountered.

His visits were at the invitation of his friends Zenia Kushpeta and Borys Gudziak.

Zenia Kushpeta had moved to Ukraine shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. She dreamt of starting a L’Arche community in the newly independent country. She helped organize the first communities of “Faith and Light” in various Lviv parishes.  These were intended to bring people with disabilities and their families together in fellowship. Henri knew Kushpeta from her days as an Assistant at L’Arche Daybreak, his home community in Toronto.  

Borys Gudziak was a former student from his Harvard years.  He was the American-born child of Ukrainians who had immigrated to America in the 1950s.  In 1983, the year they met, Gudziak had just returned to the United States after attending seminary in Rome, studying with Cardinal Josyf Slipyj of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.  In 1992, he moved to Lviv with a dream to be part of a movement to revitalize the Ukrainian church from its years hidden in the ‘catacombs’.[1]

Henri had a dream of his own.  Like his spiritual mentor Thomas Merton, Henri dreamt of the union of the Christian East and West.  As early as the 1970s, Henri lectured on the wisdom of the Desert Mothers and Fathers.  His book The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry (1981) aimed to share his ideas more widely.  One semester he taught a course on hesychasm – a mystical tradition of contemplative prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

He was also drawn to 19th century Russian mystics, and was familiar with the Philokalia, an anthology on prayer in the Orthodox tradition. Excerpts from Igumen Chariton’s book, The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology (1966), were often in his course handouts. It is from the Christian East that Henri learned the Jesus Prayer, which formed the foundation of his own spiritual practice.  His prayer life was also nourished by iconography.  His book Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons (1987) conveys his ability to enter into the Eastern Christian mind and heart.

With Zenia, he ministered to families of Faith and Light, and with Borys he gave retreats for youth groups.  He also kept a personal journal.  In an early entry he records:

“We keep wondering whether the future will be any different. With so many voices in Russia wanting to reclaim Ukraine as part of their territory, there is constant fear that independence might be a very frag­ile thing. The fact that the U.S. pays so much atten­tion to Russia and so little to Ukraine, except in pres­suring it to give up its nuclear arsenal, makes Ukrai­nians question how much international support their independence will get when push comes to shove. The somber faces of the peasants certainly are not full of expectation for a better future.”

During his second visit in 1994, he uses his journal to record the deep sadness of the Ukrainian people and commits to listen to them.  Nathan Ball, a close friend who accompanied Henri on both trips, recalls that Henri once asked the assembled crowd if they had any questions.  A young man raised his hand and spoke.  Henri sat silently with the young man’s question.  “It was much longer than comfortable,” Nathan recalls.  

Perhaps he saw that his homilies of hope and joy, so resonant in prosperous America, were out of step with the lived reality of the Ukrainian people.  He needed to listen in the silence of his heart before responding.

He also needed to bear witness.  He observed the mothers of children with disabilities:

“It became clear to me how isolated most of these mothers felt.  Many of them had no spouse and very little help on a day-to-day basis.  Faith and Light offered moral and emotional support, but many basic necessities were still lacking.  I realized that I should not be too fast in calling people to joy, peace and gratitude. Important as that is, many parents need a space to express their accumulated feelings of frustration, disappointment, anger, resentment and deep physical and emotional fatigue.  They need to be heard with a heart that wants to understand, and with a mind that looks for ways to make their lives a little easier.  Sometimes a new wheelchair, a typewriter, a new ramp, a regular visitor, etc. can make all the difference.”

A typewriter? How did that make it onto Henri’s list? The story goes that shortly after Henri’s death, his brother Laurent got a call from a Ukrainian man claiming that Henri had promised him a typewriter. Could he still hope to get it? Laurent followed through with his brother’s promise.

The delivery of the typewriter was the first of what would become a convoy of goods that Laurent Nouwen would deliver to Ukraine.  For the next two decades, he would pack delivery trucks with all kinds of donated goods: computers and school desks, washing machines and beds for psychiatric hospitals, and more. Gudziak, who befriended Laurent after Henri’s death affectionately calls him the “Practical Apostle”.

While Henri was alive, his Ukrainian journals were published in the New Oxford Review, but he also hoped to publish a book on his experiences for a North American audience.  Laurent updated the vision and partnered with translator Maryana Karapinka and Lviv publishing house, Svichado, to publish the journals specifically for Ukrainians. They were released in December 2021, the 25th anniversary year of Henri’s death.

At the book launch translator Karapinka shared her experience of seeing Lviv through Nouwen’s eyes saying, “I was struck by the fact that Father Henri looked at our post-Soviet reality with the eyes of love. He doesn’t understand everything, he is sometimes annoyed, but he tries to comprehend the situation to its core, he is not afraid to meet suffering people.” [2]

A few days later, on December 23, 2021, Borys Gudziak, now Archbishop-Metropolitan for Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, had the opportunity to present a copy of the book to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who was on a visit to the United States.

(source: Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was months away, but perhaps that night Zelensky read with shivers an observation from Nouwen that speaks across time and beyond death.  The journal entry was written a day after Nouwen’s second trip to Ukraine from Poland enroute back Canada.

“Being in Poland made me aware that Ukraine is like the foster child of Europe, not highly respected, not well supported, not given the attention it needs.  I suddenly remembered that in the story of the last judgment, God judges not individuals, but nations.  The question:  "What have you done to the least of mine?" does not simply refer to individual poor people but also, and maybe first of all, to poor nations.  God loves the poor, God even has a preferential love for the poor.  Ukraine is poor, very poor, not just materially, but also emotionally and spiritually.  To care for the poor means much more than to reach out to people who need food, jobs, clothes and a safe place to stay.  It means also to care for nations that are crushed by the forces of history and live under the burden of being ignored and rejected by the international community.”

How would Henri have responded in world now so brutalized by hatred? He would have responded with friendship, with showing up, by listening deeply and standing with people in their pain, by helping with practical needs. Like Laurent, Zenia and Borys he would dare to make a difference.

[1] The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was illegal from 1946-1989.  It was the biggest illegal church in the world and was known informally as ‘the church of the catacombs’.

[2] Quoted in “Ukrainian Journals of Henri Nouwen presented to Philadelphia audience, December 22, 2021, Archeparchy of Philadelphia website (https://ukrarcheparchy.us/archeparchy-news/knigu-ukrainski-shhodenniki-otcja-genri-nouena-predstavili-v-filadelfii)

Love, Death and Fear - A Reflection with inspiration from Henri Nouwen and Mirabai Bush

I recently attended an online meeting of the Empty Bell community. It is an inter-faith contemplative group, founded by Robert Jonas, a close friend of Henri Nouwen.  For this gathering, Jonas had invited Mirabai Bush to speak about her book Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying (2018). The book was co-written with Ram Dass, the late American spiritual teacher known for incorporating Hinduism, Buddhism, and Muslim and Jewish mysticism — into his teachings.

Mirabai explained the origins of the book: “Ram Dass was dying.  We decided to intentionally set aside time to tell each other what we knew about death. Not what we thought we knew, but what we knew.”

Mirabai gave a brief reflection on the topic of love. We were then given an opportunity to ask questions.  But love was not what people wanted to talk about.  Instead, we seemed to resonate more with the themes of death and fear.  The first questioner, Peggy, wanted help with her fear of dying alone.

It called to mind an insight I had the day before about Henri Nouwen.  I was re-reading his book Here and Now. In it, he recalls that as a child he asked his parents repeatedly if they loved him. I have always imagined little Harrie (as he was then known) standing in his crib, gripping the rails with little red fists, crying, “Do you love me?” 

It is such a poignant image and one that I have shared in many talks to illustrate Henri’s life-long struggle with crippling insecurity and neediness. But as I reread the text, I realised that another question followed the first: “Am I going to die?”  

I had never really noticed this second question before and was perplexed by the young Henri’s logic.  If he wasn’t loved did he think he was going to die?

My attention returned to our meeting. Mirabai was suggesting that when we feel anxious or sad, we could develop a practice of saying: “I am not the heaviness I feel.  I am loving awareness. I am not the sadness in my heart, I am loving awareness.”

David, a Zen practitioner, asked a follow up question: “Is there a difference between ‘awareness’ and ‘loving awareness’? I thought: “Perhaps this was Henri’s question - Is there existence without love?” 

Another participant, Margaret, offered, “When I was first taught meditation in the Vipassana tradition, I was taught to focus on the breath and become true attentiveness.  What I found as I did this with more and more focus, is that love would just bubble up.” As she spoke she demonstrated what she meant by drawing her arms up in an arc, simulating a fountain. “But no one was talking about that,” she continued  “So, I found myself drawn back to my Christian roots where the reality of love is a central theme.”

Mirabai replied, “In the Burmese tradition that I was taught, we spent a few days meditating on the breath, then a few days on the body and then we moved to a loving kindness meditation in which we practised loving kindness to ourselves, to others we love and to others we do not love.”

The conversation tacked: what does it mean to feel loved? The Zen practitioner answered, “For me it means a feeling of home, a feeling of not needing anything, a feeling of completeness. And when I experience cessation of neediness, I become aware of the state of love and this is why awareness and loving awareness are the same thing in my experience.”

I was reminded of another talk on love by a Muslim teacher from the Philippines.  He said that in the Muslim creation story, God so loved God-self that God created human beings to love God too.  This struck me because in our culture we seem to have a difficult time with self-love. Thich Nhat Hhan went so far as to say that the main difference between Westerners and Easterners is our wobbly sense of self-worth.

I think about my own life, and about how important other human beings are to my sense of feeling loved.   When love is absent I fall into a vulnerable state of fear. Like Henri, my (il)logic is that without others to validate me I’ll disappear. I’ll die.  Similarly a friend of mine, recently divorced, has night terrors of disintegrating into a million particles by her sense of aloneness. “It feels like no one will ever find me again,” she shares.

Fortunately, Henri Nouwen matured and his insight about the connection between love and death offers me and my friend an alternate way of holding our fear.  It is to turn to loving presence of God.

As a child he understandably looked to his parents for protection, then as an adolescent he turned to Jesus, later as an adult to his vast network of friendships, but finally, after many losses, he turned to God.  God who he called by many names including God-with-us, God-in-us, God-the-source-of-all-love. 

I like to think that at the time of his death, when he was moving from life to beyond life, into the love he spoke so passionately about and wanted to share with others, he remembered his own words: “If you only know one thing know this: You are the Beloved.”

I wonder about my own ability to do this.  How much more interested am I in human love to support my self-worth? But human love is fickle, and often disappointing. God’s love is that fountain that Margaret illustrated with her gesture in our meeting.  It is unconditional and ever flowing.  It is where we all come from and to where we all return.  

The meeting was drawing to a close. Mirabai gave us this final wisdom to ponder, particularly in the context of preparing for our own deaths. She asked: “How much are you willing to be with what arises? “A lot”, I thought to myself, “if I know I am loved.”

The Archival Legacy of Henri Nouwen

From 2000-2016, I was the founding archivist of the Henri J.M. Nouwen Archives and Research Collection. To help promote the collection, I created a booklet to highlight the vast archival legacy that Nouwen left behind after his death. The booklet was published in 2011, and consists of a Prologue by spiritual writer Ronald Rolheiser, OMI, a visionary Epilogue by Sue Mosteller, CSJ, Nouwen’s Literary Executrix, high-gloss photographs of a sampling of the photographs, manuscripts, sermons, and other material preserved in the archives, and a summary of the projects undertaken by the Archives and plans for the future. The following is my Introduction. The booklet is available freely on the Internet Archives. Link below.

Henri Nouwen (1932-1996), priest psychologist, brilliant educator and world-renowned author, is considered by many to be one of the most important thinkers on the spiritual life of the 20th century. At the opening of the Nouwen Archives in 2000, John Allan Loftus, SJ, stated “He is arguably one of the giants of contemporary spirituality” (National Post, 2000).

A writer of extraordinary capacity to reach a wide range of audiences, Nouwen’s work engages readers across the religious, cultural and political spectrum. In a survey conducted at Duke University and reported in The Christian Century in 2003, Nouwen emerged as the first choice of spiritual reading among both Roman Catholic and Protestant leaders. In 2000, Oprah Winfrey ran an extensive excerpt from Nouwen’s 1992 bestseller, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming in her magazine, O. In her introduction to the excerpt, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, stated that The Return of the Prodigal Son is the book that has had the largest impact on her life.

More than seven million copies of his books have been sold world-wide. They have been translated into 30 languages to date. Since his death in 1996, all but one of his thirty-nine books remain in print, including such popular titles as Creative Ministry (1971), The Wounded Healer (1972), Out of Solitude (1974), Reaching Out (1975), The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery (1976), Life of the Beloved (1992) and Here and Now: Living in the Spirit (1994).

In addition to writing, Nouwen had a distinguished career teaching in such areas as Christian spirituality, pastoral theology, and the psychology of religion. He was a compelling and committed advocate of disarmament, the poor, and contemplative non-violence The peace activist, John Dear, calls him a “true prophet of peace and justice.” (Remembering Henri , 46).

Above all, Henri Nouwen was a pastor who used his ministry to create space where people might find inner freedom and love. His approach to Christian leadership, grounded as it was in scriptural wisdom and deep faith, provides a model of tolerance and compassion for the 21st century. His legacy has an ever-increasing relevance for those seeking unity and peace in our fragmented world.

When Nouwen’s papers were donated to the University of St. Michael’s College in 2000, the Archives immediately became the international centre for Nouwen Studies. In the past decade, more than 800 researchers have made use of its vast holdings. This publication showcases the richness of the Archives and invites readers to discover for themselves the breadth and depth of material related to ministry, peace studies, pastoral theology, and psychology and the unique inter-disciplinary contribution Nouwen made to these field of study.

Click here for the complete booklet.

Advent Hope with Henri Nouwen: A Meditation with Reflection Questions

“The situation in our world is frightening, and many people experience deep anxieties.  More than ever we will be tested in our faith.  I hope and pray that the Lord will deepen our faith during these weeks of Advent and will fill us with peace and joy, which belong to his kingdom.  Hope is not optimism and I pray that we all will be able to live hopefully in the midst of our apocalyptic time.  We have a promise and God is faithful to his promise even when we are doubtful and fearful.  As Paul says: “Our hope is not deceptive because the Holy Spirit has already been poured into us.(Romans 5:5)

-       Letter from Nouwen to Catherine Dueck Doherty, December 20, 1980, in Love, Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life, 44.

Readers of Henri Nouwen will be familiar with his habit of describing the spiritual life as a series of movements – from loneliness to solitude, from fear to love, from hostility to hospitality to name but three examples.  Today, I want to focus on Nouwen’s insights about the movement from fatalism to hope.

A fatalistic person says, “What is the use?”;  “Nothing can be done about it;” “You can’t change the world”; “You must be practical and realistic.”  I expect we have been hearing these sentiments around us quite a lot lately.  Maybe, we have even uttered them ourselves.  

Is this Advent period the ideal time to consider becoming a hopeful person instead?

First, a clarification: taking a hopeful position in life is different from being optimistic.  Nouwen explains: “Optimism is the expectation that things – the weather, human relationships, the economy, the political situation, and so on – will get better.  Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God’s promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom.  The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future.  The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands.” (Nouwen, Bread for the Journey)

Let’s slow that down and focus on the last part of the sentence and ask ourselves: Do I have knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands?  You might want to take out your journal and explore what stirs in you from this question.

For myself, I can tell you that I can’t always hold onto this way of being in the world. But, Nouwen’s portrait of God in The Return of the Prodigal Son has certainly helped me to hold on to this vision of reality more frequently.

Recall Nouwen’s image of God: “Looking at the way in which Rembrandt portrays the father, there came to me a whole new interior understanding of tenderness, mercy, and forgiveness.  Seldom, if ever, has God’s immense compassionate love been expressed in such a poignant way.  Every detail of the father’s figure – his facial express, his posture, the color of his dress, and most of all, the still gesture of his hands – speaks of the divine love for humanity that existed from the beginning and ever will be.”  (Prodigal Son, 88)

A hopeful person trusts that life is in good hands.  In Rembrandt’s painting, the hands of the father rest on the shoulders of the returning son.  It is under these hands that Nouwen kneeled and was blessed.  He notices that one hand is like the mother.  The other like the father.  The hands that hold us are feminine and masculine – a perfect, balanced circle of love. 

But, as we know, particularly when life gets difficult, we are not always open to God’s love.  In fact, Nouwen’s book is so healing because it helps people who struggle with feelings of unworthiness to receive God’s love again (see p. 108 of Earnshaw, Henri Nouwen and The Return of the Prodigal Son). By naming self-rejection and connecting it to our reluctance to receive God, Nouwen touches on a core truth about many of us: we have deep wells of unworthiness. (see Earnshaw, 142).  

Often, just when we need God’s love the most, we decide to go it alone – we get practical and realistic – but Nouwen models a different way.  He shows us that a hopeful person can instead “choose for the light” and allow ourselves to be loved (see Nouwen, Prodigal Son, 108-109).  In the parable, love is always there. Nouwen shows us how to soften our boundaries and open to this field of loving.  For many of us, learning how to receive God’s love, becomes transformative and profoundly healing (see Earnshaw, 143).

The question is will we allow ourselves to met by God as we come down the road this Christmas? We know that Nouwen’s struggle to accept God’s love would continue long after his book was published but this is strangely comforting.  We too can leave and return from “the distant country.” The difference now is we know, even if we forget now and then, that we are God’s beloved.  We are not walking in circles we are walking home.  

With this comfort, with this consolation, we can choose to move from fatalism to hope. Let’s live in hope!

Listen here for a conversation I had with Robert Ellsberg, Publisher, Orbis Books and author of All Saints about the meaning of hope in a time of uncertainty, the role of discernment, and the experience of the pandemic as a “long Advent season.”

Questions to ponder:

Write, draw, paint or imagine a portrait of God.  How is your portrait the same or different from Nouwen’s portrait in The Return of the Prodigal Son? 

Think back to all the times God was present in your life.  Start at the beginning of your life (you might want to start with the phrase “I was born”) and think of as many episodes as you can where God was present, ending with where you are in life now.  It is likely it wasn’t just in the good times but also in the hard times.  What do you carry with you of value from these encounters?  How do these memories of God’s presence in your life affect your “trust that all of life is in good hands?”

Robert mentions reading about the lives of saints each morning with his wife Monica.  What saints or people have modelled for you how to live a hopeful life?

Some people describe reading Henri Nouwen as an “unlearning.” Is there anything you are unlearning by studying Henri Nouwen and his book The Return of the Prodigal Son? 

What stops you from receiving love?  Will you allow yourself to be met by God as you come down the road this Christmas? 

 [Note: this blog post was originally written for Advent with Henri, with Paraclete Press, in connection with my book Henri Nouwen and The Return of the Prodigal Son: The Making of a Spiritual Classic.]

Join Me and the Community of Paraclete Press for a Virtual Advent Book Discussion!

My entire approach to Christmas changed when I first encountered the writing of Henri Nouwen. Before reading him, I would sprint to the finish line taking too much of the noisy marketplace with me. Henri taught me the value of active waiting, how to find joy hidden in sorrow, how to remain hopeful in anxious times and many other truths that have made the Advent season much more meaningful.

With all that is going on in our world in 2020, it seems to me we need the gifts of Advent more than ever, and Henri Nouwen, beloved Catholic priest and writer of thirty-nine books on the spiritual life, is a wonderful companion for the journey.  Just this morning, I came across a letter Henri wrote in December 1980.  Penned nearly forty years ago, it could have been written today.  

“He writes, ‘The situation in our world is frightening and many people experience deep anxieties. More than ever we will be tested in our faith. I hope and pray that the Lord will deepen our faith during these weeks of Advent and will fill us with peace and joy, which belong to his kingdom. Hope is not optimism and I pray that we all will be able to live hopefully in the midst of our apocalyptic time. We have a promise and God is faithful to his promise even when we are doubtful and fearful.’ (Love, Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life, Convergent Books, 2018). 

Join me to walk the Advent path with Henri Nouwen as our companion. We’ll draw out Advent wisdom from my book about the making of his spiritual classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, speak with special guests, share some of his writing, and much more. Let’s deepen our faith together so that by Christmas day we awaken to hearts filled with the real gifts of Christmas—peace and joy.

Each Tuesday of Advent, you will be sent an email containing a link to a special blog for this discussion, where you'll find a weekly reflection by me and a few questions to discuss. You will also receive a link to a short podcast conversation between me and Paraclete Press Publisher, Jon Sweeney, and other special guests.

I encourage you to buy a copy of Henri Nouwen and the Return of the Prodigal Son: The Making of a Spiritual Classic and the original The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen. You can read at your own pace; all at once or a little every week.

To sign up please go to the website of Paraclete Press.

Book Review - Healthy Caregiving: Perspectives for Caring Professionals in Company with Henri Nouwen by Michelle O'Rourke

“Self-care is not something to add to our already full to-do list or to relegate to an annual vacation.  It must become an intentional way of living where our values, attitudes and actions are integrated into our day-to-day routines.  To me, there is a moral imperative to making sure that we work diligently at this to remain healthy ourselves, but also to ensure that we have what we need to give to others.  We deserve it – and so do they.” Michelle O’Rourke

Note: this review was published in Fully Alive,  the professional magazine of the Religious and Moral Education Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association. Vol. 5, No. 1, Fall 2020.

Burn-out.  Fatigue.  Stress.  These are some of the issues facing caring professionals - including teachers - in our task-oriented society. Teaching during a pandemic has pushed these afflictions to new levels One antidote is self-care.  In this timely and affirming book, emergency room and parish nurse, lay minister and hospice founder, Michelle O’Rourke explores the concept of caring for ourselves so we can care for others.  O’Rourke notes: “Time and again, I have witnessed how beautiful hearts, including my own, have become tired and broken when the burden of caring becomes too onerous. With millions of people involved in caring professions in North America, and millions more caring for their own families and friends in an unpaid role, supporting and nourishing caregivers is a monumental but essential task.” 

If you have even found yourself asking “How do I care for my students without sacrificing my own well-being?” this book is for you.  While the book is aimed primarily at health-care professionals, there is much wisdom for teachers as well.   It is about spending time raising self-awareness so you can be a better caregiver.  O’Rourke, a practitioner with four decades in the field, observes, “Even if you’ve been engaged in the profession for a while. It is good to sit back and reflect.” She encourages readers to take time to be in touch with their heart and soul and ask what is going well, what is causing difficulty, and what changes might help redirect them to live more in line with their own inner values and who they want to be.

A key feature of the book is O’Rourke’s use of beloved Catholic priest Henri Nouwen as a wisdom teacher about healthy caregiving.  In fact, the book was commissioned by the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust, the body responsible for his legacy since his death in 1996, to extend Nouwen’s spirituality to modern care practitioners.  

Nouwen wrote nearly forty books on spirituality and the inner life including The Wounded Healer and his understanding of care as one of mutuality and self-awareness sets the foundation for the book: “I definitely believe that we can only care to the degree that we are in touch with our own doubts and fears, just as we can only listen to the story of the other by knowing our own.” 

Nouwen’s insights are the foundation for each chapter, but O’Rourke also features the work of other experts including Parker Palmer, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen.  Alongside the experts, O’Rourke weaves in personal stories drawn from her own life as well as from chaplains, social workers and other professional care providers.  At the end of each section are thoughtful self-reflective questions “to encourage the reader to explore their own care experiences and inner landscape...” Readers could use these questions as the basis for a personal retreat or group discussion.  

An additional strength of the book is O’Rourke’s expertise in curating resources that readers might take up in their practice of self-care.  She includes a helpful summary of mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn, tips on how to use writing as a self-discovery tool and a good introduction to the practice of self-compassion by Kristen Neff to name just a few.  

The crux of the book is about the essential nature of care.  It covers such topics as suffering, power, and entering into the pain of the other.  O’Rourke explores the differences between job, career and calling, care versus cure as well caregiving as a sacred vocation.  The challenges of caregiving – the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual costs – are examined in detail.  Concrete strategies for compassionate care are suggested: examine your bias, acknowledge your judgementalism, give up control and enter into your weakness. Meditations on patience and time offer new insights that might change readers understanding of how to be present in difficult situations.  The power of listening and being (as opposed to doing) are also explored.  Brené Brown’s “myth of self-sufficiency” as well as the concept of “enough” are offered as useful tools for identifying ways you might sabotage yourself as you care for others.  The importance of building community with colleagues, looking out for signs of distress in fellow carers as well as tips on how to ask for help provide important lessons on how to sustain yourself as a professional caregiver for the long-haul.  Many of the suggestions would be applicable not just to classroom teachers but also the people who care for them, including school principals and other upper-level administrators.  

While the book is written for a broad audience, sections on sustaining the spirit will be particularly meaningful for religion teachers. O’Rourke draws readers attention to the concept of “sanctuary” by Parker Palmer.  It is about finding places, rhythms, practises that nourish the soul “for your own sake, and for those who you care for and care about.” Gratitude journals, telling care stories, inspirational reading, quiet time, formal retreats are some suggestions to nourish the spirit.  Other sections on growth and transformation will be equally meaningful.  

In 1976, Henri Nouwen, gave a public talk at Yale Divinity School called “Living the Questions: The Spirituality of the Religion Teacher.”* In it, Nouwen reflected on the role of teacher of religion.  He said, “The religion teacher is called to help students in the discovery of their own most personal search by entering with them in a common vulnerability so that in the mutual relationship between teacher and student the questioning Lord can be made visible.” Healthy Caregiving is the resource you need to take up Nouwen’s challenging call and flourish in the sacred undertaking of teaching. 

* See https://discoverarchives.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/living-the-questions

For more information: http://www.twentythirdpublications.com/hecapeforcan.html

The Making of a Masterpiece

I spent today answering a questionnaire from the publicity department of Paraclete Press, the publisher of my new book Henri Nouwen and the Return of the Prodigal Son: The Making of a Spiritual Classic. It is a long document - five pages. When it landed in my inbox about a month ago, I opened it and quickly closed it again, horrified at how much an author was expected to “push” their own book. But now, having acclimatized to yet more work an author does for free, I find myself enjoying the process. For one thing, I’ve been catalyzed to set up a “brand” on social media. I am now registered on Amazon Author Central (my url is amazon.com/author/gabrielleearnshaw) and have established a professional instagram account to share details of my new writerly life (glearnshaw is my handle - you can follow me by clicking below on the instagram icon). My newly updated twitter account is also below.

In addition to an enjoyable crash course in social media, I have been pleasantly challenged by the myriad of questions they have for me: “List 5 questions that would be a Q&A with the author”, “Please give us 5-10 key word phrases that readers might use to search for the book”, “What makes your book different, controversial, or stimulating” are some examples. It is like sudoku for writers! (Some answers: “How were you personally impacted by The Return of the Prodigal Son?”; “Adulting” “Includes never published letters from Nouwen’s personal archives.”)

A favorite question was “Give us 3 comparative title of your book”. One came to mind right away. It is the book I used as a model for my own. It is called Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece by Michael Gorra. This book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and is truly an exemplary model of a biography of a classic book. I like to aim high! Other books on my list of comparative titles include The Professor and the Madman:  A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester and Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser. No doubt there are other and perhaps you’ll share them with me below in the comments section.

Meanwhile, I will get back to my questionnaire: “Please list any ideas you have of possible endorsers for the book”. Mmmmmmmmmm…….