the chronicles of sarnia
The Way of the Heart
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I’ve been going through Henri Nouwen’s book “The Way of The Heart.” On the surface, it sounds like another obtuse Christian book that might attempt to give us all the answers to life. None could be further from the truth. Nouwen sets the stage for followers of Christ to wrestle in solitude with what it means to be disciples steeped in God’s wisdom. Nouwen uses the Desert Fathers from the 3rd century, especially the life of St. Anothony, to give some perspective on a few essential spiritual disciplines: solitude, silence, and prayer. This has been a great book to share with my worship teams as we lean into God’s wisdom and understand some of the pitfalls of society.
Right now I’m exploring the second principle: Silence. A key thought is that silence gives us space to exist apart from our doing. This thought coupled with Swenson’s “Margin” has impressed on me how unimportant my large quantities of busyness are.
This portion on Silence I half expected to advocate “nothingness” as is popular in eastern religions such as Buddhism and New Age. Rather, Nouwen prepares the Christ-centered pilgrim to tune in to God’s voice via meditation on Scripture. What a thought! This mode of coupling prayer and study of Scripture is nothing new, but a way to restore, renew and sustain an intimate relationship with an untamable force, the Word became flesh: Jesus, the Christ.
For a fresh look at something very ancient, check out Nouwen’s “The Way of the Heart.”
