Margins
Restless Soul book cover
Restless Soul
Meditations from the Road
2008
First Published
3.82
Average Rating
160
Number of Pages
These engaging selections gathered from Henri Nouwen's travel writings offer new insights into the restless soul of a deeply spiritual man. Whether Nouwen was describing the grim surroundings of post-Soviet Ukraine, mingling with senators in Washington, or meeting cocaine users in a South American prison, each situation tells a revealing story. Editor Michael Ford creates a journey from actual places Nouwen visited from the Ukraine to Bolivia via Europe, Canada, and the United States that depicts Nouwen's world as one of striking contrasts—one minute rubbing shoulders with the affluent, the next walking through lands of poverty. At each destination, we discover a man whose endless search for intimacy and beauty resonates deeply with our own.
Avg Rating
3.82
Number of Ratings
22
5 STARS
27%
4 STARS
45%
3 STARS
14%
2 STARS
9%
1 STARS
5%
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Author

Henri J.M. Nouwen
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Author · 86 books

Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen (Nouen), (1932–1996) was a Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books on the spiritual life. Nouwen's books are widely read today by Protestants and Catholics alike. The Wounded Healer, In the Name of Jesus, Clowning in Rome, The Life of the Beloved, and The Way of the Heart are just a few of the more widely recognized titles. After nearly two decades of teaching at the Menninger Foundation Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and at the University of Notre Dame, Yale University and Harvard University, he went to share his life with mentally handicapped people at the L'Arche community of Daybreak in Toronto, Canada. After a long period of declining energy, which he chronicled in his final book, Sabbatical Journey, he died in September 1996 from a sudden heart attack. His spirituality was influenced by many, notably by his friendship with Jean Vanier. At the invitation of Vanier he visited L'Arche in France, the first of over 130 communities around the world where people with developmental disabilities live and share life together with those who care for them. In 1986 Nouwen accepted the position of pastor for a L'Arche community called "Daybreak" in Canada, near Toronto. Nouwen wrote about his relationship with Adam, a core member at L'Arche Daybreak with profound developmental disabilities, in a book titled Adam: God's Beloved. Father Nouwen was a good friend of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. The results of a Christian Century magazine survey conducted in 2003 indicate that Nouwen's work was a first choice of authors for Catholic and mainline Protestant clergy. One of his most famous works is Inner Voice of Love, his diary from December 1987 to June 1988 during one of his most serious bouts with clinical depression. There is a Father Henri J. M. Nouwen Catholic Elementary School in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

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