Sabbatical Journey - Review

Henry Nouwen Crossroad, $19.95, 226 pp.

Henry Nouwen was regarded by some as one of the finest spiritual writers of our time. His sudden death in 1996 left his many readers and friends bereft. Nouwen was, of course, famously prolific, so it comes as no surprise that new books by him continue to be published posthumously. Sabbatical Journey is must reading for Nouwen fans and a fine introduction to the man for the uninitiated.

With the encouragement of his friends in the L'Arche Daybreak community in Toronto, Nouwen took a one-' year sabbatical to write and reflect. Sabbatical Journey is the journal account he kept during that break, from September 2, 1995, until August 30, 1996. Three weeks after completing the sabbatical, he died of heart failure at age sixty-four.

Nouwen began his year off with mixed feelings. "Addicted to being busy," he wondered if he could let go of his pastoral and social entanglements. The tension between his need to be with friends and his desire for quiet persisted. Again and again he writes of his emotional vulnerability and insatiable need for friendship, a need so strong that he does not fully understand it. Five months into his sabbatical, he feels "like a hungry ghost: hungry for attention and affection - telephone calls, letters, and so on." Characteristically, Nouwen is utterly open about his emotional vulnerability. He feels abandoned, forgotten, and shadowed by a constant fear of rejection.

Nouwen, of course, had numerous close and supportive friends. In the book's foreword, Sue Mosteller notes that the original, unedited journal (it was cut in half for this book), mentioned more than 1,000 people in friendship, 600 by name. Yet Nouwen's loneliness, what he called "his inner wound," never went away.

The sabbatical year was spent at the homes of two friends, one in Massachusetts and one in New Jersey, where Nouwen had hoped to have lots of free time to pray and write. Yet during the year he was drawn into a frantic cycle of weddings, funerals, and visits. The regular travel left him tired and confused. Hauntingly, he complains about constant exhaustion and fatigue. On September 11, less than two weeks into his sabbatical, he writes: "Everything requires an immense effort, and after a few hours of work I collapse in utter exhaustion." November 24: "I still do not understand why I keep being so exhausted." June 13: "Everything exhausts me, even putting on my clothes." The warnings seem clear, yet neither Nouwen nor his friends picked up on the signs. Astonishingly, he never thought to see a doctor.

"How much longer will I live?" he writes in December. "I could live another thirty years. Do I want to live that long? Or do I hope to be united with Christ sooner?"

Readers will marvel at the breadth of Nouwen's interests, from world affairs, music, and sports, to movies, poetry, and his great love for the Flying Rodleighs, a group of South African trapeze artists. He became close friends with them, filled several notebooks with material about them, and intended to write a book about the group.

Sabbatical Year also touches on themes developed in earlier books - particularly Nouwen's strong conviction that God's love can become manifest in suffering. "Where is God?" he asks. "God is where we are weak, vulnerable, and dependent. God is where the poor are, the hungry, the handicapped, the mentally ill, the elderly, the powerless." We learn much about Nouwen's evolving views on church issues. As a young man he thought that there was no salvation outside the Catholic church. He came to believe, however, that while "Jesus came to open the door to God's house, all human beings can walk through that door, whether they know about Jesus or not." His views on homosexuality changed, too, although his thoughts and feelings remained "very conflicted." Reflecting on the lives of his many friends who were homosexuals, he came to believe that "homosexuality is not a curse but a blessing for our society."

This journal reveals much about the heart and mind of a theologian who has touched the lives of millions, reminding us of the generosity of spirit and strength of Christian hope that marked Henry Nouwen's entire life.

Bill Williams is letters editor and religion book reviewer for the Hartford Courant.

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