I'm so thankful for Henri's voice. Having him speak quietly to me each morning for a week or so meant beginning my day out ahead of the madding crowd with all its noise and insidious prompting toward self-rejection.

Warm, wise, and insightful. Henri didn't accomplish what he set out to do -- speak to a secular friend about God -- but he did speak to me in the midst of my sacred and secular life.

This one goes on the shelf "to read once a year" (at least!). ( )

Another take on being beloved ala Theresa of Avila. This one much simpler. ( )

The author is very clever, evidently aware that he must tamp a bottom onto each of his claims lest the argument held within drop out. Chosen but without exclusion. Broken but not better or worse. Blessed in dying but no worse for living. Reminds me of the platonic arguments in their good faith and positive directive, but also in their porous character, though Nouwen is clever enough to stop up what holes he can. However one is left with the question ‘what is the point’? the author hints at some eschatology with the ‘spirit of love, freed from our mortal bodies, will blow where it will, even when few will hear its coming and going.’ but are fulfillment, or ‘good tidings’, or even 'a pleasant abiding here and now' ends in themselves…

Platonic/buddhist argument: success, popularity, power, not the Good - problematic in excess. Love is a Good as such. Everything else dispatched by the dialectical approach (e.g. arrogance/self-confidence as a manifestation of self-rejection reaction formation)

“being the beloved” – beloved of Whom? And in what way (e.g. eros/agape/movement of the heavens and the earth for thee, is not that enough?)

“[to Christ from G-d] You are my son, the Beloved; my favor rests on You” to --> “[to the reader] you are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.”
Whispers of the Hegelian. Being the beloved (a reality) as contrasted with non-being of the beloved (a perception) --> becoming the beloved (an action), though it leaves space for another Becoming (the unbeloved). Zizek’s “unknown uknowns” completing the tetrad.

“Chosen” vs “Unchosen” ones
“attempting to avoid, repress, or escape pain is like cutting off a limb that could be healed with proper attention” – similar to adorno’s metaphor of tendrils in “genesis of stupidity”, though A. means something slightly different...

‘to live it as an unceasing “yes” to the truth of that Belovedness' (and those who don’t are living in a worldly ‘cursed’ state). That is distinctly Nietz’s verbiage, though he may have appropriated scripture himself… furthermore, divinity as unified experience of ‘living life in one reality’ among the light while diabolism as divided experience that splits united forces and sets them in opposition (‘the world of ephemeral desires’) though what directly follows from this is an implicit injunction against intersectionality - though really he has a lot in common with Benjamin on this point. Furthermore “people and events, art and literature, history and science, they all cease to be opaque and become transparent, pointing far beyond themselves to the place from where you come from and to where you will return” ( )

This book beautifully illustrates God's love for us, and how fully embracing our belovedness will change the way we live and interact with everyone. There are so many profound quotes, I just want to highlight something on nearly every page. ( )

I have to admit that while I enjoyed reading this, I could also identify to some degree with "Fred", who basically said this was so far beyond his experience and that of his friends that he couldn't really get that much out of it. I'm sure I got more out of it than Fred did. But, that doesn't mean I grasped - really grasped - what Nouwen was trying to convey, either. I also noted that Jesus, the Christ, did not come up in the book. Just God. Maybe this was deliberate, as Nouwen was writing this for a secular Jew and his friends. I don't know. But wouldn't it have been better to preach the Gospel as part of his explanation of the spiritual life? ( )