Adam: God's Beloved

Rating:
Summary: A precious book that changes one's perspective
Review: Adam, God's Beloved, by Henri J. M. Nouwen, is an excellent book for a family caring for a special needs person, for the friends of special needs people, and for anyone wanting to understand the special world of those that are "different" from them. We are parents of a very dear special needs boy, and this book offered me a much more positive outlook toward my son than this world tends to offer. I was blessed and touched by Henri Nouwen's identification of Adam with Jesus. This book is realistic and inspiring at the same time--par excellente!

Rating:
Summary: A Book About Love
Review: As a former professional carer for men and women with profound learning and multiple physical disabilities, I have a personal interest in the subject matter of this book. In Adam, Nouwen describes the life and death of a core member of L'Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, Canada; one with whom he had a particularly strong relationship. Adam was disabled from birth and had lived at home until reaching adulthood when he spent five years in institutional care before joining the Daybreak Community. Adam was unable to speak, he suffered from epilepsy and was left unable to walk as the result of a drug error. He was also incontinent and unable to take control of his own personal hygiene, that is, washing, dressing etc. Devoid of the ability to do things which most of us take for granted, and, lacking anything in which society recognises status, he was, by every definition, a marginal person.

Nouwen describes his progressing relationship with Adam, which began with self-conscious attempts to meet Adam's physical and social needs, and deepened into a real relationship between two human beings that Nouwen describes as being like brothers. He compares Adam's life and ministry with that of Jesus: the fulfilment of his work on earth, like Jesus, was in his brokeness. Jesus died a failure and a marginal person yet it was through this that his mission on earth was accomplished. Adam, like Jesus, ministered to the spiritual and emotional needs of others through his weakness and through the lack of control that he had over his life. Anyone who entered into an honest relationship with him experienced his ability to connect them with what was really important on the human journey: love, faithfulness, integrity and acceptance. He represented, in himself, the importance of being rather than doing, of being faithful to one's own identity and purpose.

There is much of Nouwen's book that anyone in relationship with a person with learning difficulties could relate to: at the beginning of their relationship Nouwen saw a disabled person who happened to be called Adam, he couldn't see beyond his disabilities. As their relationship progressed, and as Nouwen himself integrated more fully into the Daybreak community, he reports that it became harder to judge who was disabled and who wasn't. What we define as disability became invisible.

Those who have come across Nouwen's work before can hardly be unaware of his intense and complex personality that bordered on self-obsession. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the focus of this book was more Adam than Nouwen. It does have its limitations: Nouwen's apparent discomfort with mystery and uncertainty I find disappointing; he still defines Adam in relationship to himself and his own beliefs. His view of people with learning difficulties also seems hopelessly idealistic, to read Nouwen one would think that they never lost their temper or became upset. There is also no recognition of the pain, anger, disappointment and guilt experienced by families with a disabled child; there is no recognition of the injustice of suffering seemingly inflicted on some people; there is no recognition of the hopes and dreams of the learning disabled themselves who may have social and sexual aspirations which because of their disabilities are often unlikely to be fulfilled. However, I welcome the book as a work which presents a positive image of people with learning difficulties and offers helpful insight into their immense potential and contribution to our Church and society. And for anyone who has not been privileged, as I have, to work alongside such people, its message could represent an important step on their own journey.

Rating:
Summary: The message that God can use any person to teach His lessons
Review: For all of us who have ever wondered about the value of a life--what gives value to a life, what is a life worth living, what guidelines does our culture, our society, our nation put on life?-- Henri Nouwen, through his own search for the answer to those questions, provides the answer by laying down his success at Harvard, Yale and Notre Dame and caring for a man named Adam who can do nothing for himself. The story of the professor/priest who comes to look to Adam as his professor, his teacher, is what God's love can do when we mere humans listen to His voice. Of what infinite value we are to God, each and every one of us. Thank you, Henri Nouwen and all the people at L'Arche. It is a wonderful life-affirming book in the midst of a time when life is not affirmed much.

Rating:
Summary: A powerful, heart warming book about Love
Review: Henri Nouwen teaches from his personal experience. The lessons in this book go beyond head learning. Instead, the book explains how a broken, severely disabled young man can be an inspirational teacher to a Havard professor and theologian and to you and me. The book is written in easy conversational language and carries a very powerful, potentially life altering message about the Love of God made manifest through the broken body of the young man named Adam. A must read.

Rating:
Summary: Adam was Henri Nouwen's Teacher.
Review: Henri Nouwen was a Spiritual Author of almost 50 books, had taught at Harvard, Yale, and set up and taught in the Pshchology Department at Notre Dame. He had two Doctrates in Psychology plus he was degreed in Theology. What then could a retarded man who could not speak, walk only when assisted by others, and who never earned a nickle teach Henri? In this great book, Henri calls Adam "My Greatest Teacher." Adam teaches Henri: (1) Being is more important than doing (2) Heart is more important than mind (3) The weakest amongst us create community. Read this book to see how the poor in spirit confound the wisdom of this world.

Rating:
Summary: Special perspective of a parent of a handicapped child
Review: I have bought copies of this book several times to give to people who are caring for my son or who are thinking about a career working with the severely disabled. Nouwen explains the blessings to be found in the joys and sorrows of life with those who are limited in how they relate to the world. This book reminds us that God's love is not based on our "worth" to other people or to society. Wish this were available in paperback like the related Road To Daybreak.

Rating:
Summary: Polite Dissent
Review: I'm the father of an eight-year old boy with Down Syndrome. I cherish and value the disabled. I wanted to love this book of reflections on the author's relationship with a severely disabled man. But, really, honestly, it isn't that good. It was unfinished at Nouwen's death and retains a half-baked, rushed quality. There is remarkably little description of Adam's everyday life: indeed, for every sentence about Adam there must be three or four about Nouwen's interior life. At times, Nouwen sentimentalizes and "theologizes" the severely disabled, which is another way of obscuring their humanity. Nouwen meant well, the publishers meant well -- but "Adam" just ain't that great.

Rating:
Summary: Book was Great
Review: This book was recommended by a neighborhood childhood friend who I greatly respect, and I ended up greatly respecting this book.
It's a deeply moving account of what it is like to live day by day with a severely disabled man named Adam. In Adam, the priest, Henri Nouwen, finds a spiritual treasure, a new way of looking at the world, that transcends his immersion in religion so far in his life. As the father of an autistic child, I was brought to quiet tears many times. He saw Adam as a great teacher, as I also see my son Stephen, who has severe autism.
His book will no doubt get you to to look at life from a completely different and fresh viewpoint. Thank you to Ann my
wonderful Catholic friend for having this book touch my life. :)

Jeffrey McAndrew
author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy" and radio broadcaster

Rating:
Summary: Typical Nouwen Fare
Review: This is a good story. Maybe if I hadn't read so many of Henri's other books, where he recounts some of the same experiences as in this book, I would have been more moved. It was helpful and touching to read about this relationship Henri had which had such a profound influence on him, and in which his theology culminated. He had been realizing for several years that we are all called the Beloved independent of what we do, have, or how we look--but this was most pronounced for him through his relationship with Adam.

So it is worthwhile getting a fuller picture of how Adam taught Henri so many important things about God and himself, but if you have already read many of Nouwen's books (written after he went to L'Arche), much will be repetitive. But evenso, the story and concrete examples of Henri living out his theology are really beautiful. And as someone who works closely with and sees God in people with developmental disabilities, it is wonderful for me to see how Henri saw God in Adam. One of the other reviewers accuses Henri of romanticizing relationships with people with disabilities, but I do not find this to be the case. It was clear that Henri was writing a book about how he encountered Jesus in Adam, and of course focused on incidents that would show that. I did not find the book lacking just because it mainly talked about the peaceful and beautiful moments, because the purpose of the book is to show us how God is in every person, and in a special way in people with disabilities; and it comes across loud and clear. I recommend this short book, though it is definitely not my favorite by Nouwen; it could easily be read in one afternoon.