Henri giving Chris a cross from El Salvador
In celebration of this
month’s fifth anniversary of my blog, the last entry of January and every
Wednesday of February I’ve provided the most visited post of each year. For
2015, that would be Progressive vs. “Biblical” Christianity.
My friend, Nouwen
biographer Michael Ford, invited me to write this piece about Henri Nouwen for a
retreat he is leading on the spiritual writer this week. It so happens that details of my own spiritual formation course on Nouwen September 22-25, 2016 were posted last week.
It tends to fill up, so register early!
When
Henri Nouwen proposed a course on “The Life and Ministry of Vincent van Gogh”
at Yale Divinity School for the spring semester of 1977, his fellow academics
were stymied, expressing concern: “But he was an artist.” “Wasn’t he crazy?”
“Didn’t he kill himself?”
I
took that seminar and it was my last formal course with Henri, though our
friendship would continue through the rest of his life. We viewed photos and
prints of van Gogh’s paintings, read his voluminous Letters to Theo (his patron brother), and biographical materials. A
limit of a dozen or so students allowed an intimate, conversational format.
Many
parallels drew Henri to Vincent. They preferred using only their first names.
They were from Holland. Both were prolific. They shared compassion for the
poor, the outcast, the marginalized, and the underprivileged. They each
exercised unconventional ministries. Both were problematic as well as prophetic
for the church. Either could be intense. And both were extremely lonely.
I
did not know that Vincent had begun as a conventional Calvinist minister to the
coal miners of the Borinage, and that his ministry scandalized the church
because he did not keep a “professional” distance—descending into the mines
with them, chatting with them at their kitchen tables, giving them his
possessions, including his own bed to a sick woman.
This
led to his dismissal from his pulpit by the church hierarchy and a long idle
period trying to discern, “What next?” He decided to take up painting, hoping
that his work would offer the same consolation that the Christian faith once
did, even as Henri’s books about our very human challenges consoled his
readers.
Unlike
Vincent, who only sold two paintings in his lifetime, Henri’s books soon touched
millions, either directly or indirectly through their influence on Catholic,
Orthodox, and Protestant pastors and lay leaders throughout the world.
Henri’s
classes helped countless students discern their true vocations, not just in
ministry, but determining what kind of minister they were called to be. As the
final paper for that course I wrote a fictional story about a woman in
transition, ministered by two versions of van Gogh’s Madame Roulin and Her Baby, which I spent time contemplating, first
in Philadelphia and then in New York City.
Writing
that story was the most fulfilling paper I produced in all three years of
seminary, because it brought together compassion (my required muse) and
creativity, as well as my callings as a writer and minister.
I
am grateful to Henri and Vincent for their spiritual guidance. Vincent once
wrote that Jesus was an artist whose medium was human flesh. Both Henri and
Vincent followed in his footsteps as soul artists.
A reading for this week of Lent:
Click on their names to
find other posts that refer to Vincent van Gogh or Henri Nouwen.
Please support this blog
ministry by clicking here and scrolling down to the donate link below its description or by mailing to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA,
designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check
or money order. Thank you!
Donations of $100 or more either at once or over 2016 will
receive a signed gift copy of my book, Henri’s Mantle: 100 Meditations on Nouwen’s Legacy.
Copyright © 2016 by Chris R. Glaser.
Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite.
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