Intimacy

I enjoyed reading the book by Henri Nouwen. I enjoy all of this books and this was not an exception.

Most of us avoid intimacy, as it makes us vulnerable to reveal our inner being. Yet, one of the things we need and seek in life, is precisely that. Henri Nouwen is a religious thinker and writer. If you are seeking more 'spirituality' in your life, you will want to add this book to your reading.

One of Nouwen's older works, this book, developed over a two-year experience as a visitor to the University of Notre Dame, contains wonderful insights into the nature of love and the direct relation that love has to an integrated life. Addressing real situations with practical psychology and spirituality rooted in his own research and praxis.

This volume of Nouwen's extensive corpus is one of his shorter works which provides a relatively easy handling of the material. While aimed at religious and seminarians, his insights on authentic and inauthentic love transcends a narrow audience to include anyone interested in learning more about relationships and the introspective journey that accompanies an integrated view of oneself.

Those of us that attend "conservative/traditional" churches may often look with envy at those crazy folks having so much fun in the Pentacostal movement. Our services drone on with the excitement of a DMV line, while the church down the street rocks louder that Yosemite Falls. Are we missing something? Isn't our relationship with God supposed to BE a relationship, full of emotional ranges of joy to tears and back again, instead of sitting in pews wondering if we will be home in time for the "big game"?
We READ about the miracles Jesus performed but have never seen one. On Sunday morning, the congregation is busy taking notes on the sermon topic "Does God still heal"? Have we ever healed someone? Can we? Why are the early disciples so different than us? They act and talk in a way that shouts "We know our God!"
Where is the closeness, the passion, the intimacy that a relationship should have?
Yet what if I don't speak in tongues? What if I have never had a word of knowledge? Am I really a Christian? Do I have to raise my hands when I sing?
Henry Nouwen dives in this pool of wondering and may offend both the stoic Baptist and the barking in the Spirit Pentacostal. .He has a balanced view of how we can have intimacy with God and intimacy with others. The deadness of traditional Christianity can be replaced with guilt and depression, two of the most common ailments of the Pentacostal movement. Privacy gets tossed out in the Pentacostal churches, Henry argues, as people are forced to reveal deep hurts and pain as "cleansing" or to "release the demons"..
Henry concluded with a goal for intimacy within the Christian community: "a climate to allow searching without fear and questioning without shame..growth can only take place when belief and unbelief, doubt and faith, hope and despair can exist together."

Although this book is written to male, Catholic seminarians or Priests, there are many aspects of it that are applicable to anyone who follows God and desires intimacy in their relationships with God and others. Nouwen writes beautifully and reminds us that the importance in loving is being able to do so with our whole selves without consideration on how much love we'd be getting back. Several of the sections are particularized to a Catholic seminary lifestyle, but the lessons and insights Nouwen explains can also be generalized to protestant seminary life, life in college fellowships, and just fellowship groups within churches. The later parts of the book are less involved directly with issues of intimacy though. They are more about environments which are conducive to creating healthy intimacy and those which aren't, so it's less directly concerned with personal cultivation of fulfilling intimacy. But there are definitely some good tidbits about intimacy in this book, and if that's an issue you want to have a deeper understanding of, this book is well worth your time.