Nouwen's Anguish
Submitted by Ford Prefect on March 25 2000 09:18:23
In reply to Nouwen's Anguish submitted by Ray on March 25 2000 00:05:02
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Nouwen takes several pages in the introduction to The Inner Voice of Love to explain where he was and how he got there, but the heart of it can be found in this excerpt (which I found particularly haunting): -------- All of this was triggered by the sudden interruption of a friendship. Going to L'Arche and living with very vulnerable people, I had gradually let go of many of my inner guards and opened my heart more fully to others. Among my many friends, one had been able to touch me in a way I had never been touched before. Our friendship encouraged me to allow myself to be loved and cared for with greater trust and confidence. It was a totally new experience for me, and it brought immense joy and peace. It seemed as if a door of my interior life had been opened, a door that had remained locked during my youth and most of my adult life. But this deep satisfying friendship became the road to my anguish, because soon I discovered that the enormous space that had been opened for me could not be filled by the one who had opened it. I became possessive, needy, and dependent, and when the friendship finally had to be interrupted, I fell apart. I felt abandoned, rejected, and betrayed. Indeed, the extremes touched each other. --------- These two paragraphs were enough to make me want to read the rest of the book to find how he was able to reconcile and emerge from this. I identified with much he wrote and had learned. ---Ford |
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