Biography
Father Henri Nouwen was born in the Netherlands but has spent most of the last twenty years in North America. He was a professor at Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard. A few years ago he spent nine months at the L'Arche community in France - a place where mentally handicapped people and their assistants attempt to live together according to the Gospel. This led him to commit his life to the mentally handicapped people at Daybreak, a sister community in Toronto. He has written more than twenty books on spirituality and ministry including With Hands, Out of Solitude, Heart Speaks to Heart, The Wounded Healer, Genesee Diary and Gracias. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Journey to L'Arche" 
I am really glad to have been invited to this program. I've been wondering what I could share with you, and I thought the simplest thing might be to sham a little bit of my own journey to L'Arche a journey from an academic world to a world with mentally handicapped people. I thought you might like to hear a little about how it all came about.

One of the things that I am becoming aware of more and more is that from the very beginning of my life there have been two voices. one voice saying, "Henri, be sure you make it on your awn, be sure you can do it yourself, be sure you become an independent person. Be sure that I can be proud of you." And, another voice saying "Henri, whatever you are going to do, even if you don't do anything very interesting in the eyes of the world, be sure you stay close to the heart of Jesus, be sure you stay close to the lave of God." You can sort of guess which voice was whose. But, I guess we all hear these voices to some degree—the voice that calls you upward and says, "Make something of your life, be sure you have a good career." Then, a voice that says, "Be sure you never lose touch with your vocation." There is a little bit of a struggle there, a tension.

First of all, I tried to solve it by becoming a sort of hyphenated priest. Do you know what that is? It is sort of a priest/ psychologist. I thought I could have them both. People would say, "Well we don't really like these priests around" and I could say, "Oh well, I'm a psychologist. I'm clearly in touch with things so don't laugh at me." I tried very hard to keep those two voices together—the voice that called me upwards and the voice that called me downwards.

In the beginning of my life I pleased my father and mother immensely by studying, then teaching and then becoming somewhat known, going to Notre Dame, Yale, Harvard. I pleased a lot of people doing so and also pleased myself. I felt good about it. It was a beautiful time. But somewhere on the way up, I wondered if I was still really in touch with my own vocation. I started noticing it when I suddenly found myself speaking to thousands of people about humility and wondered what they were all thinking about me. I said, "My goodness, here I am talking about love and here I am talking about God's goodness and here I'm talking about humility to all these people from all over the place."

I came home and was alone. I didn't really feel well. I didn't really feel peaceful. I didn't really feel very centered. Actually, I felt lonely. I didn't know where I belonged. I was pretty good on the stage but not really always that good in my own heart. I started to wonder if my career hadn't really gotten into the way of my vocation. It was a very anguishing time in my life—a time of real pain. I felt guilt and confusion. Here I was talking about God and I was not feeling really well. So, I started to pray very simply. I remember saying this prayer over and over again, "Lord Jesus, let me know where You want me to go and I will follow you. But, please be clear about it. No ambiguous messages!" I prayed and prayed.

I was still living at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. One morning at 9:00 o'clock, there was someone pushing the bell of my little apartment. I went to open the door and there was a young woman standing there.

She said, "Are you Henri Nouwen?" I said, "Yes, I am." She said, "I've come to bring you the greetings of Jean Vanier." Jean Vanier was quite unknown to me. I had heard that he was the founder of the L'Arche Communities and that he worked with mentally handicapped people but that was about all I knew.

I said, "Oh, that's nice. Thank you. What can I do for you?" "Oh," she said, "no, no, no, I've come to bring you the greetings of Jean Vanier."

I said, "Thank you, that's nice. Do you want me to talk somewhere or write something or give a lecture?" "No, no, no," she said, "I've come to bring you the greetings of Jean Vanier."

By that time I said, "Where are you from?"

"Oh, I'm from Mobile, Alabama."

I said, "You've come from Mobile, Alabama, to New Haven to give me the greetings of Jean Vanier? Isn't that a little much?"

She said, "Can I come in?"

I had sort of forgotten my manners and I said, "Please come in but I have to leave. I have to work, to teach, to meet all these people."

She said, "Oh, you go and I'll stay." So, she moved into my room and I left for the University.

When I came home that night—I had sort of forgotten about her—I saw something I had never seen before. I walked into my room. The table was beautifully decorated with a lovely white cloth over it, candles, a bottle of wine, flowers, two plates with nice silver. I just looked and said, "What's this?"

She was standing there laughing and said, "We're going to have dinner together."

I said, "But all these things, where did they all come from?"

"I found them in your own cupboards."

I said, "My stuff?"

"Yes, it's yours. You haven't even noticed that you have it. Let's have dinner."

She and I sat there having this delicious dinner in my own house with my own things, and I thought, "What's happening?" She stayed three days and helped me with all sorts of things. Finally she said, "I have to go. I just wanted you to know that Jean Vanier sends his greetings."

When she had left, I sat in my chair and thought, "Now, this is something special. Somewhere God is answering my prayer. This is like an angel coming to you bringing a message and calling you to something new." I wasn't asked to take a new job. I wasn't asked to do another project. I wasn't asked to be useful to anybody. I was simply invited to come to know another human being who had heard of me.

It took about three or four years before I really met Jean. We met silently at a retreat in which no words were spoken. At the very end Jean said, "Henri, maybe we, our community of handicapped people, can offer a home to you, can offer a place to you where you are really safe, where you can meet God in a whole new way." It was an incredible experience because he didn't ask me to be useful; he didn't ask me to work for handicapped people; he didn't say he needed another priest; he didn't say any of these things. He said, "Maybe we can offer a home to you."

Gradually I realized that I had to take that call very seriously. After a few years, I finally realized that the time of being at the university was over. I had struggled to go to different places—maybe I should go to Latin America, maybe I should work with the poor—I tried all sorts of thing. Suddenly I realized Jean Vanier's call was a real call. It came from God. He had sent someone to me and I should take it seriously.

I left the university and went to France. After a year in France, I was called to become a priest at the Daybreak Community in Toronto which is a L'Arche Community (the word L'Arche means the Arc of Noah) a community of about a hundred people, fifty handicapped people and fifty assistants. L'Arche is a community of mentally handicapped people and their assistants who try to live in the spirit of the beatitudes. So I went to Toronto.

I would just like to talk to you a little bit about the very beginning of being in Toronto. The first thing they asked me was to work with Adam—of all names. I had to work with Adam! It sounded like working with humanity. Adam, a twenty-four-year-old man, was very, very, very handicapped. He couldn't speak. He couldn't walk. He couldn't dress or undress himself. You never really knew if he knew you or not. His body was very deformed. His back was distorted and he suffered from continuous epileptic seizures. And, they said, "Henri, we would like you to work with Adam." I was really afraid. "Don't worry."

Here I was a university professor. I had never touched anybody very closely and here was Adam. Hold him! At 7: 00 in the morning I went to his room and there he was. I took off his clothes, held him and walked with him very carefully. I was frightened because I thought he might have a seizure. I walked with him to the bath and tried to lift him into the bath tub - he was as heavy as I am. I started to throw water aver him, wash him, shampoo his hair and take him out again to brush his teeth, comb his hair and bring him back to his bed. Own I dressed him in what clothes I could find and took him to the kitchen. I sat him at the table and started to give him his breakfast. The only thing he could really do was lift the spoon up to his mouth. I was sat there and watched him. It took about an hour. I had never been with anyone for a whole hour, just seeing if they could eat.

Something happened. I was frightened for about a week, a little less frightened after two weeks. After three or four weeks, I started to realize that I was thinking about Adam a lot and that I was looking forward to being with him. Suddenly I knew something was happening between us that was very intimate, very beautiful and that was of God. I don't know how to say it well.

Somehow I started to realize that this poor, broken man was the place where God was speaking to me in a whole new way. Gradually I discovered real affection in myself and I thought that Adam and I belonged together and that it was so important.

I want you to understand a little better what happened between Adam and me. Maybe I can say it very simply. Adam taught me a lot about God's love in a very concrete way. First of all, he taught me that being is more important than doing, that God wants me to be with God and not to do all sorts of things to prove that I'm valuable. My whole life had been doing, doing, doing, so people would finally recognize that I was okay. I'm such a driven person who wants to do thousands and thousands of things so that I can somehow finally show that I'm a worthwhile being. People say, "Henri, you're okay." Here I was with Adam and Adam said, "I don't care what you do as long as you will be with me." It wasn't easy just to be with Adam. It isn't easy to simply be with a person without accomplishing much.

Then he taught me something else. He taught me that the heart is more important than the mind. Well, if you've come from a university, that's hard to learn. Minds thinking, having arguments, discussing writing, doing, that is what a human being is. Didn't Thomas Aquinas say that human beings are thinking animals? Well, Adam didn't think. Adam had a heart, a real human heart. I suddenly realized that what makes a human being human is the heart with which he can give and receive lave. Adam was giving me an enormous amount of God Is love and I was giving Adam of my love. There was an intimacy that went far beyond words or far beyond activity. I suddenly realized that Adam was not just a disabled person, less human than me or other people. He was a fully human being, so fully human that God even chose him to become the instrument of His love. He was so vulnerable, so weak, so empty, that he became just heart, the heart where God wanted to dwell, where He wanted to stay and where He wanted to speak to those who came close to His vulnerable heart. Adam was a full human being, not half human or less human. I discovered that. Suddenly I understood what I had heard in Latin America about the preferential option for the poor. Indeed, God loves the poor and He loves Adam very specially. He wanted to dwell in his broken person so that He could speak from that vulnerability into the world of strength, and call people to become vulnerable.

Finally, Adam was telling me something that is sort of obvious. Doing things together is more important than doing things alone. I came from a world that is very much concerned with doing things on your own, but here was Adam, so weak and vulnerable. I couldn't help Adam alone. We needed all sorts of people. We had a person from Brazil, people from the United States, Canada, Holland—young, old living together in one house around Adam and other handicapped people. Suddenly I realized that Adam, the weakest among us, created community. He brought us together and his needs, his vulnerability, made us into a true community. We could not have survived with all these different characters together if he hadn't been there. His weakness became our strength. His weakness made us into a loving community. His weakness invited us to forgive one another, to calm our arguments and to be with him. I think it is very important that God revealed Himself through Adam, telling me, "Henri, being is more important than doing; the heart is more important than the mind and living in community is a lot more important than trying to do it all on your own.

That is what I'm learning. I've been there only three years and it's not easy. I make a lot of mistakes. In many ways, Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard were easier. I went through a lot of inner-pain and discovered my own handicaps, my own struggles and my own anguish. I now know it is a vocation for me and I want to stay there. I hope I can stay there and be faithful.


Ken Medema's response to Father Nouwen s message:

From the hallowed halls of Harvard,
And the lecture rooms at Yale,
To a lowly life at Daybreak,
Is a long and dusty trail.

From the noise, and the pomp and the circumstance,
That we've come to love so well,
To the morning light of a simple life,
There's a story here to tell.

From the Wall Street money, the swimming pool,
From the stages and the acclaim,
To a life I might live where I'd be unknown,
And I wouldn't have any money or fame.

From the dream of my mother and my father,
From the place where I now live,
To a place where I could be free indeed,
And really learn how to live.

I'm bound away on a long, long journey,
I don't know where this road will end,
Yes, I'm bound away on a long journey,
Surprises keep waiting just 'round the bend.

I'm bound away on a long, long journey,
Oh, yes, the road will be long and sweet will be my rest,
Yes, I'm bound away on a long journey,
The answer to this riddle is gonna be my quest

And the riddle says,
Finding leads to losing, losing leads to finding,
Living leads to dying, living leaves death behind,
Losing leads to finding, nothing else to say.

No one will find life, no one will find joy,
Oh, no one will find life in any other way.

Interview with Henri Nouwen
Interviewed by David Hardin

David Hardin: Henri, it's a little hard to know where to start because you answered some of the questions I had in mind for you. I think I heard you say that in a way we are all handicapped, but it is more subtle in some cases. Is that true?

Henri Nouwen: Oh, yes. It's really true. I must even say that handicapped people are the ones who sometimes bring you in touch with your own handicaps. They are very, very defenseless people and they let you know right away whether you are with them or not with them. For instance, they know exactly when you are not with them, are preoccupied and when your mind is somewhere else. Somehow they know when you're not at peace. They have no hesitation in letting you know, just by how they are with you.

Hardin: I think many people are fearful or anxious about being around mentally handicapped people or handicapped people. They don't know what to do. They are nervous and they think they will do the wrong thing. what can we tell them?

Nouwen: Well, stay. You know, at first a handicapped person is a stranger, one who creates a fear in you.

Hardin: Because they're different.

Nouwen: They also remind you of something you don't want to be reminded of. They remind you of the brokenness of humanity and also of your humanity. You say, "No, no, I'm fine." Gradually you discover that if you allow yourself to be with them, they reveal your handicap to you. They also reveal to you that your handicap may become the gateway to knowing yourself better, to knowing God better and to knowing life better.

Hardin: Is it okay to talk to a handicapped person about the handicap? I think people worry about that. How did you get it? How do you feel?

Nouwen: Some people can't even say anything or talk much. Others can talk about it quite well. Interestingly enough, in our community we talk about it very little. We sort of forget who is handicapped and who is not. It's not like a staff and patient; it's not like clients and those who help them. It's very much the opposite. I came to L'Arche thinking how I could help handicapped people, but that went away quickly. I realized that they had as much to give to me as I to them. It's a real mutuality. It's a community. We live in a community together.

Hardin: What is your role at Daybreak now?

Nouwen: First of all, my role is to be a real member of the community, to be part of a community, but also to be a member of the community as a priest, because people really like to hear about Jesus. They like to hear someone speak about it very simply and directly. I have discovered that it is harder to speak simply about Jesus than to speak complicatedly about Jesus. You know what I mean? If you're with handicapped people, you really have to speak simply. Not only simply, but from your own heart. The only thing that they can hear is what is really coming from your heart. They will let you know very quickly when you go off on nice ideas but no longer speak from the center, from your own communion with Jesus.

Hardin: What about yourself? What have been the stumbling blocks for you in staying there and being involved?

Nouwen: It is not very easy. Many things make it hard to be there. First of all, I was terribly left-handed. People wanted me to cook and wash. I was awkward.

That's one thing. Secondly, it is hard to deal with the emotional part of it because sometimes handicapped people will let you know that they don't like you. Once I came home with a beautiful gift I had bought for one of the handicapped people. He said, "I don't need your gifts any more." You are not used to people being so direct. In a way, he was very honest. He didn't feel a wealth of intimacy between us. He was letting me know it. But I think the most difficult thing was to come in touch with a deeper loneliness than I have ever experienced.

In the community of L'Arche you gradually discover a sort of second loneliness. The first loneliness is feeling lonely and wanting to be with people and having friends. But here I'm in a community where I have friends, where I am part of a loving community. It's in that community that I had to learn a new kind of loneliness. In the deepest place, even when you are surrounded with caring people, you really are alone and it's good to be alone. You stand alone before God and you cannot expect any human being to solve the deepest desires of your heart. In a way, the handicapped people have forced me to come in touch with a place in me that I wasn't even in touch with before, a very basic place where only God can fulfill the needs of my heart, only God can give me the love I really search for. I went into a community. I wanted lave and I wanted a home but basically, life is not home yet. So, it's an ark.

Hardin: Just one quick final question. I think I know the answer. Are you saying that really we all need community?

Nouwen: We all need community but we also need to realize that in this world community is to bring us to a place where we are in full communion. That is possible only with God.

Hardin: Thank you very much.