Henri Nouwen puzzles over a question.
Presbyterian General Assembly, Indianapolis, 1985 (crg)
I
have finally read Michael Ford’s most recent “portrait” of Henri J. M. Nouwen.
I didn’t jump into it when I received it last summer partly because I needed a
kind of sabbatical from Henri for a few of the same reasons I kept my distance
in real life. Paulist Press, at the behest of Mike no doubt, sent it as thanks
for including some of my thoughts on whether Henri was a mystic.
Lonely Mystic: A New Portrait of Henri J. M. Nouwen is the most intimate glimpse of Henri yet, if
that’s even possible, given his intimate self-portrayals in almost every one of
his own books. It may make those who want to see Henri canonized squirm a
little, though not because of any illicit affairs or theological heresies or tasteless
behavior. He was the consummate “best little boy in the world” that every gay
boy and man wants to be, but his calling to a celibate vocation kept him lonely
and needy and sometimes, broken.
I read with particular interest the chapter on Frank Hamilton’s close friendship with Henri.
Begun as Frank eagerly sought out Henri for spiritual guidance, over many years
it transformed to a friendship that I would describe as “soul friends.” I had
heard some of the stories recounted in the chapter from Frank himself over a
private dinner when he attended my first Columbia Seminary spiritual formation
course on Henri. A few other stories are found in Henri’s own books. Btw,
I’ve been asked to teach the course again September 17-20, 2020, and I’m
thinking I will use this new book as one of the texts, prompting intriguing changes
in the content.
Though
I resisted the tug of Henri’s emotional needs as well as the spotlight of
having a famous friend, I envied Frank a little for the spiritual
intimacy he and Henri shared. Yet I had my own life to live as a gay activist
and, I hoped, a spiritual guide within the LGBT community, and my notoriety as
such even prompted Henri to decline a desire to dedicate one of my books to him,
at least, while he was alive. After his death, I dedicated Coming Out as Sacrament to him, an ironic twist in that Henri never
came out, though Mike points out that many a gay reader recognized their own
experience through his books in his passionate reaching out to others and to
God.
Mike
asked me to reflect on the question, was Henri Nouwen a mystic? Using Evelyn
Underhill’s stages of a mystic, I saw that Henri had experienced all five,
though as “dimensions” of mysticism, cyclical rather than sequential. The final
stage, union, is debatable. In that context, I suggested Henri might be
considered an “unfinished mystic,” never having finally “arrived.” Like the
chapters about various events in Lillian Helman’s memoir Unfinished Woman or Rembrandt’s many self-portraits over the years,
each of Henri’s books may represent a self-portrait of Henri at that point in
time, amid different circumstances, contexts, and communities.
I’ve
written before that, in the spiritual life, there is no finish line. And that the
greatest spiritual danger is to believe one has “arrived.” There are no
“finishing schools” for saints, which accounts for their often eccentric,
countercultural, and prophetic ways. For Mike’s purpose, I used as examples Henri’s
unfinished books on Adam, his charge at Daybreak (completed by Sue Mosteller,
his literary executrix), and the Flying Rodleighs, trapeze artists,
who came to represent complete union with God. They
had taught him the vital (life-giving) importance of “trusting the
catcher,” in life and in death. That he never completed this book is emblematic
of Henri’s own inability to let go. Instead of trusting, he was always trying
to “catch the catcher” (take hold of God).
[Lonely
Mystic, 150]
As
Henri explained in Our Greatest Gift: A
Meditation on Dying and Caring, the flyer is considered by the audience the
hero in the trapeze act, as he or she lets go of the bar and does double or triple flips midair before being caught by the catcher. But the real hero is
the catcher, whose timing is precise enough to reach for the flyer at just the
right time. If the flyer tries to catch the catcher, the latter’s wrists might
be broken, so trust in the catcher is key. Henri compared this to trusting God,
the Divine Catcher, in life and in death. [Our
Greatest Gift, 66-67]
Romantic
Age poets saw worth and beauty in an unfinished work. Henri was a great
romantic, and an “unfinished” mystic. That is what draws us to his writing—his vulnerability,
his incompleteness, his wounds. Like the Jesus he followed, he was in every way
like we are.
A
couple of months ago, I considered bringing this blog to an end. Faced with the
impenetrability of God in Christian mysticism, challenged by Buddhist mysticism
and the concept of “no thing,” and only too well aware of my own limitations, I
felt it was time to keep quiet, to keep silence. But angels keep troubling my
waters, and I feel called to respond. And many of those angels are you, the
readers.
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Copyright © 2019 by Chris
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