Olentangy Indian Caverns, near Columbus, Ohio |
In the 1980s I wrote Henri Nouwen a letter, asking him a question. To my delight, Henri wrote me back.
204 of Nouwen's personal letters have been published in Love, Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life. Here we have a repository of depth and wisdom, a deep well dug over years of praying, meditation on Scripture, serving others, and engagement with the Jesus Tribe.
In one of them, written in 1976, Nouwen wrote to a friend who was in a spiritual abyss.
“A simple-minded, simple-eyed commitment to God is all that counts,” Nouwen wrote. “We will never overcome the demons by analyzing them, but only by forgetting them in an all-consuming love for God. God is simple, demons are complex. Demons like to be analyzed, because that keeps our attention directed to them. God wants to be loved.”
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My four books are:
Encounters with the Holy Spirit (co-edited with Janice Trigg)