Prophetic and deeply empowering to be present with those who don’t know Christ. Nouwen embraces the mystery of our spirituality and unveils the beautiful limitations of ministry. One of the best books I have read on ministry in years.

“For people of prayer are, in the final analysis, people who are able to recognize in others the face of the Messiah They are people who make visible what was hidden, make touchable what was unreachable. People of prayer are leaders precisely because through their articulation of God's work within themselves they can lead others away from confusion and towards clarification; through their compassion they can guide others out of the closed circuits of in-groups and towards the wider world of humanity; and through their critical contemplation they can convert convulsive destructiveness into creative work for the new world
to come.”

“Ministry is a sign of hope because it makes visible the first rays of light of the coming Messiah”

This is one of those books that makes me excited for the work of ministry. To meet people in their pain and simply express our shared human experience. To look at them and say, “I am here with you, and here is the hope we have.”

The first half of the book was intriguing mostly because in 1970 (when the book was published) Nouwen was making observations about the younger generations, western society, and culture that are wildly similar to today. If not for the citations reminding me that this was written 50 years ago - I would have thought he was writing to millennials.

The second half of the book focused more on the work of being a wounded “minister” and a healing “minister” - and how those two vocations are one in the same. “In short, Who can take away suffering without entering it?” (Pg 72). For me, this section of the book was a grace-filled reminder of Jesus’ presence with me in my own suffering and Jesus’ nearness when I stay close to others who are suffering.

Written by Nouwen in the early 1970s, it’s surprising how much his description of the “modern man” is still relevant to today. The majority of the book is an analysis of human character and motivations with the appeal to being a wounded healer in the last chapter, which I enjoyed the most. All in all, not my favorite Nouwen book.

Alright those who care for the spirits of others, add this to the required reading!

Perfectly timely as I wrestle with the purpose of my pain and how it will affect my journey as a counselor. This book is an almost academic approach to how understanding that healing can happen only if we look to our Wounded Healer and see how our wounds can be opportunities for healing, for the self, for the neighbor, for the world.

Another one devoured! (Partly because it was only 100 pages)

”Thus ministry can indees be a witness to the living truth that the wound, which causes us to suffer now, will be revealed to us later as the place where God intimated a new creation”.

”What we can know, however, is that humans suffer and that a sharing of this suffering can help us move forward”.

”Nobody can predict where this will lead us, because every time hosts allow themselves to be influenced by their guests they take a risk of not knowing how their lives will be affected”.

Kunde lista många fler citat ur denna bok, men låter dessa tala för sig. ”People connect with you through your weaknesses”. Att visa sig sårbar har än en gång visat sig vara ett sätt att leva ett kristet liv, samtidigt som man genom såren får visa på att Jesus kommer att hela dessa sår en dag, Han som är den riktiga Helaren.❤️‍

I came to Henri Nouwen on the recommendation of Fred Rogers, and I was not disappointed. This slim volume is somewhat dated (I was pleasantly surprised to see two King Crimson songs quoted in the second essay, for instance), but its central message is timeless: that the very experiences that wound us most deeply are also those from which we can draw the greatest strength. Nouwen does not romanticize suffering; it is not suffering itself that is beautiful, but rather what human beings can do with it. Nouwen uses the metaphor of the Grand Canyon: a scar on the landscape in one sense, and yet in another sense a place of almost unbearable beauty. I use the metaphor of a bog: nobody likes to get stuck in a bog. It's fetid and rank and sometimes it feels as though you'll never escape. But a bog is also the place where coal forms; and coal burns. Indeed--and this is Nouwen's central thesis--it is through facing our own hurts and fears that we can begin to help others face theirs - not to make the hurts and fears disappear, but to be fully present with them in the midst of their darkness and, with the coal of our own experience, to be for them a fire in the night.

The book looked like a quick read due to its brief ~100 page-length, but this was deceptive. I feel Nouwen's message in the first half of the book, while still relevant, represents the society and culture of my parents' generation. "We have lost faith in technology," he writes. This is the opposite of the truth for Generation Y (and whatever the subsequent generations have been labeled). My peers put faith in little beyond science and technology. Writing in 1972, Nouwen perhaps saw an age that used technology to send young men in helicopters to napalm and Agent Orange a country they didn't understand. Dismal technology indeed, but the personal computer was soon to reinvigorate the culture on that viewpoint.

The second half of the book is the relevant half for a modern audience. Nouwen's insight that we can all share out of our woundedness--the idea that loneliness is elemental--make it worth reading. The idea that we must live and die on our own convictions, and yet others must do the same, points to the soundness of this apparently paradoxical idea. Why must we be lonely? Because we must be ourselves, accepting God and life and fear and love as they come to us. Why is loneliness essential? If one cannot endure it, one cannot be free. And Nouwen's point that we as wounded healers allow others into our space, saying, "I too am alone, come and sit with me,"--it is a strange one, but one that I think speaks to the intersection of free will and our ability to help others.

I’ve read this before and I’ll read it again - always wonderful to sit with Henri - no spiritual teacher resonates with me as he much as he does - he always puts me in touch with some of my deepest and most obscure longings/intuitions.

This time I read the book through the lens of Joseph Campbells “the hero journey” and I couldn’t help but see the profound connections between Campbells final stage of “return with the elixir” and Nouwen’s “wounded healer.”

The final criterion and very efficacy of the journey itself is found within the capacity to make your own journey available to others. You cannot provide to others that which you have not found for yourself. Much to reflect on here.

I’ve read few books that have truly shaped and transformed my way of thinking and subsequently my way of living. This book stands among them.

Simple, moving vision of how we minister to others , not by fixing them, but by our own study, and contemplation of our personal wounds (like loneliness) we provide a space of listening to, safety, and an environment of solidarity in the human experience of suffering.

Wounded Healer reads like a guidebook to pastoral ministry, and its truths have shifted the way I show up with others. Nouwen's philosophy of pastoring through life-on-life hospitality has particularly struck me--that pastoring modeled after Jesus requires entering into your own suffering before you can lead others through theirs. I'd recommend this book to anyone who feels overwhelmed by empathy for others' pain, and especially anyone who calls themselves a minister.