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Summary: Spiritual Imperatives
Review: "During my months of anguish, I often wondered if God is real or just a product of my imagination." From Father Nouwen's introduction:. . . . I wondered whether I would be able to hold on to my life. Everything came crashing down -- my self esteem, my energy to live and work, my sense of being loved, my hope for healing, my trust in God . . . . everything. Here I was, a writer about the spiritual life, known as someone who loves God and gives hope to people, flat on the ground and in total darkness. What had happened? I had come face to face with my own nothingness. It was as if all that had given my life meaning was pulled away and I could see nothing in front of me but a bottomless abyss . . . . Just when all those around me were assuring me they loved me, cared for me, appreciated me, yes, even admired me, I experienced myself as a useless, unloved, and despicable person. Just when people were putting their arms around me, I saw the endless depth of my human misery and felt that there was nothing worth living for. Just when I had found a home, I felt absolutely homeless. Just when I was being praised for my spiritual insights, I felt devoid of faith. Just when people were thanking me for bringing them closer to God, I felt that God had abandoned me. It was as if the house I had finally found had no floors. The anguish completely paralyzed me. I could no longer sleep. I cried uncontrollably for hours. I could not be reached by consoling words or arguments. I no longer had any interest in other people's problems. I lost all appetite for food and could not appreciate the beauty of music, art, or even nature. All had become darkness. Within me there was one long scream coming from a place I didn't know existed . . . . But this deeply 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 . . . . I realized quite soon that it would be impossible to survive this mentally and spiritually debilitating anguish without leaving my community and surrendering myself to people who would be able to lead me to a new freedom. Through a unique grace, I found the place and the people to give me the psychological and spiritual attention I needed. During the six months that followed, I lived through an agony that seemed never to end. But the two guides who were given to me did not leave me alone and kept gently moving me from one day to the next, holding on to me as parents hold a wounded child. To my surprise, I never lost the ability to write. In fact, writing became part of my struggle for survival. It gave me the little distance from myself that I needed to keep from drowning in my despair. Nearly every day, usually immediately after meeting with my guides, I wrote a "spiritual imperative" -- a command to myself that had emerged from our session. These imperatives were directed to my own heart. They were not meant for anyone but myself. In the first weeks it seemed as if my anguish only got worse. Very old places of pain that had been hidden to me were opened up, and fearful experiences from my early years were brought to consciousness. The interruption of friendship forced me to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there, to choose, in the face of it all, not death but life. Thanks to my attentive and caring guides, I was able day by day to take very small steps toward life. I could easily have become bitter, resentful, depressed, and suicidal. That this did not happen was the result of the struggle expressed in this book . . . . . . . . I was able to look back at that period of my life and see it as a time of intense purification that had led me gradually to a new inner freedom, a new hope, and a new creativity. The "spiritual imperatives" I had put down now seemed less private and even possibly of some value to others. Wendy and several other friends encouraged me not to hide this painful experienced from those who have come to know me through my various books on the spiritual life. They reminded me that the books I had written since my period of anguish could not have been written without the experience I had gained by living through that time. They asked, "Why keep this away from those who have been nurtured by your spiritual insights? Isn't it important for your friends close by and far away to know the high cost of these insights? Wouldn't they find it a source of consolation to see that light and darkness, hope and despair, love and fear are never very far from each other, and that spiritual freedom often requires a fierce spiritual battle?" Their questions finally convinced me to give these pages to . . . . and make them available in this book. I hope and pray that I did the right thing.
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Summary: Separating spiritual needs from human needs
Review: "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.
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Summary: Absolutely Amazing, and So Helpful....
Review:
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.
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Summary: Break Up Bible
Review: For anyone going through times of uncontrollable emotional pain, loss of a loved one, rejection by a partner or a relational break up, this book is a life saver. Each imperative seem to be able to articulate in the deepest way possible, what I was feeling during times of emtional pains. It doesn't offer solutions to your problem but offers a deep understanding to one's suffering. That in itself I find, is better than any cure. And we know a cure for emotional pain doesn't really exist. This book works like an antibiotic. It doesn't offer a direct cure but a way for your heart to identify with the pain and gradually recover from it. It is a life saver. Get it. It will pull you out of the weckage.
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Summary: Imperfect; scant evidence of the transcendent
Review: Henri Nouwen wrote these self-directed "imperatives" during the midst of anguish and depression in 1987. The depression began with the sudden interruption of a close friendship, and the writing was motivated by the desire to emerge from this deep distress. The meditations average two to three pages in length and are often quite simple and lucid, with the gentleness of voice that we have come to expect from Henri Nouwen. However, the advice that Nouwen gives to himself only sporadically transcends the platitudinous, and will not be invariably helpful to everyone who reads them. There are vexations in the style, a tin-eared inclusivity, e g "God is faithful to God's promises" (p 4) and an over-use of the word "community" that seems generated by an irrational phobia of the word "church." In his efforts to make these extremely personal meditations have a universal appeal, it often happens that the language goes quite flat. Nouwen at times challenges himself to greater fortitude, but we are reminded of a man trying to jump-start his car with both ends of the cable hooked up to his own dead battery. There are exceptions -- the meditation entitled "Love Deeply," beginning on page 59, is beautiful. Another vexation to this reader was the fact that to Nouwen, a Catholic priest, his faith seems so far in the background that one needs a pair of binoculars to discern it. To be sure, faith is difficult when one is enduring a deep anguish, but it seems that Nouwen is at great pains to distance himself from anything remotely resembling the mysteries of his faith, the words "God" and "Jesus" often appearing as an afterthought, a sop to the traditionalists among his readers. We do respect Henri Nouwen, and have benefited from reading some of his other books; and indeed, there are passages in "Inner Voice" which we are most grateful to have read. We are not comfortable withholding praise from a book which seems to have helped so many people; most especially, its author. But there is something lacking in this book. Perhaps we remember the journals, "The Road to Daybreak," "The Genesee Diary," and "Sabbatical Journey," where Nouwen's writing has a greater effervescence, owing to his interaction with others. The most dedicated Nouwen fans will, of course, find great merit in "Inner Voice"; but we think it not his best book.
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Summary: Penetrative
Review: 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.
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Summary: Getting to know more of the intimacy within us
Review: Henri Nouwen's book The Inner Voice of Love has shown me the true genuine love of the Father and has given me an understanding of who God really is. This book is a must on my list of books and has always helped me in my most darkest moments. I recommend this book to young and old, professional or unprofessional.
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Summary: A Life-Changing Gem
Review: Henri Nouwen's description of his late-life anguish, and the set of brief self-directives he lived through to see it slowly ameliorated, is a gift to the world. A man whose writing is an exercise in the hesychastic prayer he loved (a descent "with the mind into the heart") here is his most self-revealing. We have Henri Nouwen painfully learning how to live out the kind and challenging words of Henri Nouwen. I was so inspired I wrote myself a similar set of "self-directives" which I refer to continually.
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Summary: A deep, honest spiritual journey
Review: Henry Nouwen's book is wonderful, and I am glad that he decided to publish it. He writes about touching God in the nakedness of aloneness once all of his external supports were stripped away. A very valuable book. One reviewer ("ceolnoth") fails to see any depth to it. He must've been reading a book by someone named Henry Noonan; the book that I am reading is certainly not the same one he read.
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Summary: A comfortable breakdown on sabbatical
Review: I am a huge fan of Henri Nouwen's, but this book explores his Achilles heel. During a breakdown of sorts, he takes off for six months (Can't we all?) and is led through the darkness by two caregivers who meet with him daily. (Can't we all?) If these little paragraphs on "embracing the pain" etc. etc. are the fruits of such long, meditative navel gazing, God bless his soul, he either needed six more months of it, or a cold shower and a shove back into the world.
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