Customer Reviews

The Inner Voice of Love

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book is an honest journey of the human experience and enables one to understand the meaning of life. It is very useful to all adults whether one is dealing with first hand depression or someone close to you is. He is able to reach the inner most sensitive parts of every human being and give comfort where there is pain. This is a book that needs to be kept out so one can read it at anytime, any chapter. It shows how going through very painful periods in this physical world lead to peace and valuable information that needs to be shared. It looks at life through very healthy eyes with God as our director. I don't think anyone could possibly read this book and not feel hopeful afterwards.

You do not have to be Catholic to learn from and appreciate what Henri Nouwen has to say. He will touch your soul. Demonimational differences are moot. You do not have to be suffering from personal anguish to relate to Nouwen's words. His hunger for relationship with others and God are part of the common human experience. This book is a gift of "words". Words we have, at one time or another, tried so inadequately to find to explain our hunger to ourselves. Read it piece by precious piece and keep going back to it. It will keep you in touch with your own humaness, sensitive to the humaness of others, it will sand away the callouses of life and help you to focus on what is really of value.

Once again, Henri Nouwen brings us closer to his own heart and to the heart of God. His journey, a journey of anguish, leads ultimately to freedom. As he wrestles with the God who formed him, with the inner struggles that shape him, with the world that confines him, he struggles to fuller understanding of self, and in the process, a fuller understanding of God. For this reader, I am fortunate to have spiritual guides like Nouwen who have led me through the valley to the bright morning of renewed strength, of victory over the darkness of the closet, and of freedom in the spirit of Christ. When I read the chapter on 'Bringing your Body Home to God,' I had the most intense spiritual experience of my life, as I brought what I had seen, up to that time, as my imperfect body, the body of a gay man, home to God and had him receive me "Just as I Am," His child, created to enjoy His world and His gifts.

There is no question that one of those gifts is Henri Nouwen. I encourage any reader who is suffering the anguish of darkness in his or her spirit -- pick up this little book and let your journey move forward to resolution. Freedom has a price, but the joy far outweighs the costs!

Henri Nouwen's autobiographical reflections are penetrative in that one can feel their relevance in a personal way. Nouwen experienced a transcendent crisis that made him leave a place he loved. He found himself chagrined by the fact that many consider him a spiritual model and yet his crisis was pulling him into despair. His knowledge and even his experience to this point could not preserve him from the full field of appraisal that penetrated his life.

Many of Nouwen's reflections are basic spiritual disci;lines. For instance, he says that one should not look for love from the place in which one ministers. The source of love for the minister, he maintains, is the community to which the minister belongs. Thus, the religious should look to his or her community for support. The lay minister has a family or a social group who can offer the kind of intimacy the minister needs.

Very often Nouwen comments that one needs to trust in God. Appreciative abadonment fo the mystery is what will bring the soul back into relationship with God.

Each reflection is one or two pages in length. It is advisable to read this book slowly to absorb its religious and spiritual power. One reflection a day accompanied with meditation will help the reader experience what Nouwen is conveying. There are books that have relevance for one's spiritual life. This book penetrates into one's unique constellation and calls forth a surrender to God.

Wow...

Let me say it again: WOW!!! This book will change you. It does not matter who you are or what your story is...if you are a human being...this book will change you.

Stop reading this review for a moment. Go buy the book. Come back and I will tell you more:

OK then. Now that you have purchased a copy (if you haven't I'm serious-go do it) lets talk about the book you will soon posses---or should I say will soon posses you. This book is amazing. It is the chronicle, told with heartbreaking honesty, of one man's ascent from darkness to light; from death to life...from nothingness to the arms of God.

This is not a story however. There is no narrative. It is a collection of spiritual imperatives that Henri Nouwen wrote to himself during the worst spiritual, emotional, and psychological crisis of his life. Each one drips with meaning.

Each imperative is soaked in the power and grace that can only come from passing through the fire of human suffering. This stuff is what was left at the end of each day Henri spent in the refining fires of his struggles. There is no dross here.

God has clearly spoken here in and through this man. Get this book and listen to what He has to say.

As someone who suffers with depression and wrestles with spiritual issues, this book has touched me like no other. It took me several days just to get past page three. Each small meditation is an incredible truth that could drastically change a life.

I will be reading and re-reading these thoughts until they are ingrained in me, until I can call them to my mind and work them out in my life. These reflections will ring true in your heart, and they will call to your long-lost inner voice of love and guidance. Spiritual tensions make sense here, they have a place, an ordered place in personal life.

I struggle with the sadness and the promise of joy; I struggle with the darkness and the light, with my needs and the Giver. And this book brings discordant parts of our lives into harmony with one another. It helps me make sense of my life and myself. And that is a true gift.

I loved this book, and bought several for those with some struggle they were working through in their lives. This passage so completely touched me and speaks to much of the message in Nouwen's writings:

from "Live Your Wounds Through" passage:

You have been wounded in many ways. The more you open yourself to being healed, the more you will discover how deep your wounds are... The great challenge is living your wounds through instead of thinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds deeply than to understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them. The choice you face constantly is whether you are taking your wounds to your head or you heart. In your head you can analyse them, find their causes and consequences, and coin words to speak and write about them. But no final healing is likely to come from that source. You need to let your wounds go down to your heart. Then you can live through them and discover that they will not destroy you. Your heart is greater than your wounds.

The Inner Voice of Love is a book Nouwen never intended to publish. The short chapters are entries from his personal diary of a very dark and difficult time in his spiritual life. I found every page to be moving and instructive in how to reach out to God and others in times of doubt and confusion. This book should not be read in one sitting, but in many short readings with time for reflection and application.

"The Inner Voice of Love" is a collection of "spiritual imperatives." The author suggests not to read too many of these spiritual imperatives at once, as do I: read one daily, and meditate on it throughout the day, and again at the end of the day. Although they do not need to be read in the order in which they appear, I recommend doing so, for their order follows the path of Nouwen's spiritual growth through this time of depression for him.

The overall theme of these spiritual imperatives is how to grow from being a needy person to trusting that God will and does fill those needs in us that no human can possibly fill: hence the title, "The Inner Voice of Love." Over the course of this journey, Nouwen seemed not only to learn but to trust that love comes from within, rather than outside of ourselves. There is a place for human relationships in our lives, but it is also necessary to have a relationship with God, and how often these two relationships get confused. What does "a relationship with God" imply? Nouwen explores this question throughout his book.

Each spiritual imperative is a return to God, a grasping of distracting and worrying emotions and handing them over to God in a refreshing, insightful, and compassionate way. Each one brings God back to the center of one's life.

Written as meditations to help Nouwen through a period of extreme crisis and depression, The Inner Voice of Love speaks to people who don't have all the answers and who struggle with their own brokenness. In a series of short meditations Nouwen opens the door to his life and gives us clues about our own.

One meditation particularly continues to speak to me and has been one of the most powerful stories I am able to tell hurting people when they come to me after they make a mess of their life (again). The meditation "Keep returning to the Road to Your Freedom" reminds us that when we put the car in the ditch we don't go to the beginning of the journey and start over, we pick up from the point we got off the road. As most folks have a real problem with forgiving themselves when they do something stupid, this gives them a reminder that they can pick up and carry on.

The book is a great read to sit and read in a couple of settings, but a second reading done one reading/one day at a time offers a depty of thought that can be transofrmational.

Highly recommend