This book is a group effort of 25 theology students who helped Nouwen formulate his initial ideas. Lived experiences forms the background of the book and the insights emerge from such experiences and flow back into them. The book has 5 chapters consisting of experiences constituting a movement from ‘clenched fists’ to ‘open hands’.

Prayer is not easy as anyone who prays will testify. It is a relationship wherein we allow the other to enter the deepest recesses of our being and this is very sensitive and sometimes even painful. The clenched fist imagery represents a resistance to the kind of relationship that prayer demands. Surrendering ourselves to God in prayer is vital to unclench our fists but this cannot be fully achieved as behind every fist lies another one. Nonetheless, surrender brings with it a kind of freedom. Prayer takes on a whole new and significant meaning.

Prayer is connected to silence. It’s not only that we need silence to pray but that the silence itself sometimes becomes prayer. Silence is not always connected to peace. Sometimes silence can be frightening especially when we are anxious of what may be revealed in silence.

Prayer teaches us the importance of acceptance. We need to accept God who wants to give himself to us and to feel accepted by Him. The world displays to us the folly of acceptance. It preaches individualism and prudence. Prayer implies a certain amount of folly. We must be willing to stake it all on the Lord, knowing well that He will never let us down. This is one of the challenges of prayer.

Every prayer is an expression of hope. If you expect nothing from the future, you cannot pray. Without hope there can be no life. A prayer of little faith is carefully reckoned, stingy and upset by every risk. It is not permeated by hope. Praying with hope means not getting entangled with selfish wishes and gifts but with the giver.

A prayer of hope is a prayer that disarms you and extends you far beyond the limits of your own longings. Therefore, prayer leads us to others. It is never a closed compartment wherein the individual builds a wall around himself and his God. Prayer cannot be disconnected from life and our life is social. Hence, the best manifestation of prayer is compassion. Compassion must not be confused with pity. It is in the first place, a revelation of our neighbour as a human being like ourselves. Secondly, compassion means acknowledging our mutual destiny in God.

Very interestingly, in the final chapter, Nouwen makes a connection between prayer and revolution. Revolution is not understood in the violent sense, but as conversion or change. As we delve into the depths of prayer, we constantly undergo change and conversion. This happens at the personal level but must also translate into the relational level. Prayer must open our eyes to the problems and sufferings of people in society. Christian witness is a revolutionary witness.

The book is small but very insightful. The chapters are not written in the usual style but as short reflections ranging from a few lines to a page. This fosters reading and reflection. Christians struggling to pray and those in prayer alike will find this book helpful to steer them as they progress to pray with open hands.

It is a beautiful book on prayer, beautiful as a blossom Orchid.

يقدم مفاهيم جديدة للصلاة و ارتباطها بالحياة المسيحية ككل.

The quote that went into my bones and will never leave me:

Praying means giving up a false security, no longer looking for arguments which will protect you if you get pushed into a corner, no longer setting your hope on a couple of lighter moments which your life might still offer. Praying means to stop expecting from God that same small-mindedness which you discover in yourself. To pray is to walk in the full light of God, and to say simply, without holding back, “I am human and you are God.” At that moment, conversion occurs, the restoration of the true relationship. Man is not the one who once in a while makes a mistake and God is not the one who now and then forgives. No, man is a sinner and God is love. Conversion makes this obvious with a stunning simplicity and a disarming clarity.

This conversion brings with it the relaxation which lets you breathe again and puts you at rest in the embrace of a forgiving God. The experience results in a calm and simple joy. For then you can say: “I don’t know the answer and I can’t do this thing, but I don’t have to know it, and I don’t have to be able to do it.” This new knowledge is the liberation which gives you access to everything in creation and leaves you free to play in the garden which lies before you.

The person who prays not only discovers himself and God, but in the same meeting discovers who his neighbor is. For in prayer, you not only profess that people are people and God is God, but also, that your neighbor is your sister or brother living alongside you. For if your conversion has brought you down to the bottom of your human nature, you notice that you are not alone: Being human means being together. (58-59)

A brilliant shot into your prayer life

I had no idea this book would be so short, & I certainly didn’t imagine it would pack such a wallop! Imagine being punched in the face by love. That’s the best way to describe this tiny book. It happened so fast, yet the result (instead of pain & a fractured eye socket) is a blinding flash of divine joy that will stick with me for a bit. You bet I’ll be turning to this again & recommending it to everyone ever.

I enjoyed reading more Nouwen. These reflections on prayer come from discussions held with 25 of his students and in accompanied by thoughful photographs.

7lw awiiii

This book is Nouwen's first book on spirituality written in 1972 and, though it is short, it is a powerful book on prayer. Having open hands before God gives us the freedom to accept His good gifts, take the focus off ourselves, and care for others. Includes photographs that enhance the message of the book. This is one that I could re-read often.

This is not a book to read in one day, despite its small page count. It is a great book to accompany morning/evening disciplines, and is nicely divided into bite-sized sections. Some people may not find the content overtly original, but as always, Nouwen provides a peaceful and meaningful look at his subject matter. I absolutely loved the section on silence, and continue to carry Nouwen's challenging thoughts with me in my daily rhythms.

I got this book for Christmas, last year. I'm a fan of Henri Nouwen, and have been for quite some time. His style of writing is easy to read and yet, somehow, doesn't lack depth. This is a very small book, weighing in at just over 120 pages, and those pages are rarely more than half-filled with text. The book is obviously presented as one that can be picked up and read at any time, without feeling like one needs to read it from cover to cover. That is, of course, what I did on this reading, but feel very likely that I will continue to pick it up and read it, almost randomly picking a spot, from day to day.

Nouwen presents prayer in a wonderful light in this book, beginning with the idea that, when we begin to pray, we much unclench our fists and have open hands. Hence the title of the book. Once the hands are unclenched, we move on to the beginning stages, where we understand the significance of silence in our prayer life.

Silence isn't necessarily the absence of sound, and it certainly isn't always peaceful. There are some kinds of silence that can be frightening. And anyone who has spent any time outside, in nature, knows that "silence" can be experienced even while hearing sounds of birds, wind, and rushing streams or creeks. More important is the ability to have inner silence when praying. This is a much bigger challenge.

From silence, we move on to acceptance. Praying with open hands means accepting our world as it is, and accepting God as He is. We become able to do more than just pray a list of wants, while leaving discouraged or disappointed if we don't get what we pray for. Acceptance also means accepting gifts, both from God and from others. We have to get rid of the idea that accepting a gift obligates us.

The book progresses from there, and I like how each chapter, each concept, builds on the previous one. The remaining chapters are Prayer and Hope, Prayer and Compassion, and the most challenging, Prayer and Prophetic Criticism, in which Nouwen challenges the reader to be willing to be openly critical of the world and society in which we live.

The book ends where it began, by discussing open hands. "In the end, a life of prayer is a life with open hands--a life where we are not ashamed of our weaknesses but realize that it si more perfect for us to be led by the Other than to try to hold everything in our own hands."

A few nuggets, but mostly outdated and not one of his books that I would read again.

Brings new perspective of looking at the meaning on prayer.