 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
- Biographies - |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Wounded Prophet |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Wounded Prophet byMichael Ford Doubleday 233 pages, 1999 ISBN 038549372X Reviewed by Anthony Connolly Biographies of the departed by their very nature tend to slouch towards irony. Michael Ford's Wounded Prophet, chronicling the life and struggles of theologian and world-renown spiritual writer Henri Nouwen (NOW-un), is no different. However, what makes this personal history rise above the general fray is that the irony of Nouwen's life, as reported by Ford, makes his stamp on this world all the more indelible. In this biography on the Roman Catholic priest and spiritual journalist, the author illustrates at length how the late writer could not live up to his books. Nouwen, who died in 1996 at age 64, wrote beautiful, very personal volumes on spirituality. Many consider his impact on modern-day spirituality to rival that of Thomas Merton. It turns out the great author fought many demons, just one of which was his hesitancy to come out of the closet as a gay man. Ford's thesis is that Nouwen's many wounds (his inability to endure solitude and Color his chronic attention-getting) made him a better writer and a better priest. His wounds allowed him to know how to heal the hurt of others. Nouwen wrote passionately from a place of pain most readers could relate to and find solace. "He discovered that it was from the wounded places in himself that he could reach the wounded places in others," Ford writes. After all, the biographer suggests, the best theology comes from one who knows. "Trained in psychology and steeped in the riches of Christian spirituality, Nouwen managed to balance his awareness of the dynamics of the human psyche with his openness to the workings of the Spirit," Ford reports. Wounded Prophet is not a classic biography in either structure or content. Ford catalogues his subject in three sections (Heart, Mind and Body) in much the same manner Nouwen formatted his own work. Ford says he wanted the book not to be: "a full-scale biography, an assessment of his literary output, or a systematic theology of his thinking, but an exploration of the person as a wounded prophet for our time." Both structure and content succeed wonderfully. A Nouwenian who knows the body of the theologian's work will find much treasure here. A neophyte to the man who wrote nearly 40 books will discover a rich background to begin an extended reading of his theology. One does not have to know of Nouwen to find Wounded Prophet profitable. Therein lies its magic, perhaps. We see ourselves in the author. And in reading Ford's exploration of this unique spirit, we discover even the most vaulted of souls struggling with the human condition. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||