Befriending Life: Encounters with Henri Nouwen

Of the many contemporary writers specializing in Christian spirituality, none has forged as strong a link between his writing and his personal relationships as Henri Nouwen. In works such as Adam, Nouwen described the revelatory power of friendship in his life. Now, in Befriending Life: Encounters with Henri Nouwen, those who knew the Catholic priest speak of the revelations they received by knowing him. The book includes remembrances from every phase of Nouwen's extraordinary career, from his young adulthood in Holland to his academic career at Yale and Harvard divinity schools, to his political activism for peace and his work with the mentally and physically disabled at the L'Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto. In her foreword to Befriending Life, Sue Mosteller, the literary executor of Nouwen's estate, attempts to summarize the many reflections in this volume by observing "[Nouwen] pushes us to recognize how special and precious our little lives are." Mosteller's observation, with its startling use of the word "little," perfectly captures one of the great pleasure of reading Nouwen, and of reading this book written in his honor. We are humbled without being reduced, and find comfort in loving our limitations, as God loves them. --Michael Joseph Gross