The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life ~ by Henri Nouwen
Analysis of Nouwen’s paradigm for the spiritual life
In Reaching Out, Henri Nouwen offers a paradigm by which we are released to live “in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”[1] Nouwen suggests that we need to reach out beyond the tension caused by our lonely, hostile, illusive state.”[2] As our lives vacillate between poles of stressful and fruitful existence, our souls are tempted by apathy and yearning for true spirituality. Therefore we must, Nouwen urges, move from the pole of personal loneliness to an embrace of solitude, move from the pole of hostility to an exercise of unselfish hospitality, and most crucially move from a pole of illusion to an intimacy with God through prayer. Wrestling with these polarities provides opportunity to construct a practical paradigm for the spiritual life that encompasses the whole of human experience. Nouwen’s threefold paradigm for the spiritual life develops a practical approach to these polarities and, as a result, provides a practical framework for a discipline of discipleship.
Reaching Out to Out Innermost Self:
The First Movement: From Loneliness to Solitude
Nouwen’s humble approach to spirituality is born out of the recognition that each person, encounters a struggle to cope appropriately with unpleasant circumstances of life. Nouwen begins with the universal life experience of loneliness. Even in our busy, populated world, the feeling of relational impoverishment antagonizes our souls. Despite our desperate attempts, we are unable “to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness”.[3] No possession, competition, individual, nor community can offer a sustained fulfillment of our despondent hearts. We must recognize our continual, and essential, condition of aloneness. By courageously attending to the reality of our individual isolation, we can begin to discover a hidden beauty. In other words, instead of avoiding or denying our loneliness, Nouwen suggests, we must transform it into a “fruitful solitude”. Using loneliness as a platform, we reach out, not to others for fulfillment, but towards a recognition and concern for our inner-self.[4] Our wounded and craving hearts yearn for wholeness. Perhaps we can begin to find that sense of wholeness by embracing solitude rather than wallowing in loneliness. According to Nouwen, this conversion path is the beginning of the spiritual life. [5] In order to embark, we must attend to the struggles within our soul.
Spiritual solitude is “an inner quality or attitude that does not depend on physical isolation.”[6] By reaching out to our inner self, we sensitize ourselves towards spiritual discernment. Aloneness for most people tends to produce spiritual distraction and frustration. Contrastingly, an attentive heart of solitude produces an openness and awareness of others, especially of God. Wrestling with the tensions of loneliness, we can move from egocentricity to altruism where intimate relationship outside of oneself is possible.[7] In other words, solitude expands our spiritual reach. We are more able to embrace the aspects of a spiritual life as we move from falsehood and temptations to a life refreshingly attached to God and others.[8] Solitude enables our souls to more responsibly and wisely wrestle with circumstances outside of ourselves. The shift from loneliness to solitude transforms our world view, making us alert and aware of the world around us.[9] Our hearts become contrite, interruptions initiate opportunities, selfishness concedes to compassion, and suffering opens the prospect of healing.[10]
Reaching Out to Our Fellow Human Beings:
The Second Movement: From Hostility to Hospitality
As with the movement from loneliness to solitude, Nouwen contends that it is also imperative to convert hostility into hospitality. This second movement of his paradigm for spiritual life urges people to transform fear and repulsion of strangers into a welcoming and reconciling attitude of the heart.[11] Our goal, then, is to “convert the hostis into a hospes, the enemy into a guest.”[12] Too often, stemming from fear or anger or despair, we allow inwardness to champion itself in our lives. The atrocious, daily events of our world should, however, actually “force us to break out of our individual pious shells and stretch out our arms” to God and our fellow human beings.[13]
Biblically, hospitality is described or modeled as more than an invitation to receive a stranger into a physical location. Hospitality is a “fundamental attitude” toward others. This challenging second movement of the spiritual life requires a bold rejection of ambivalence or distrust towards strangers. This movement requires the commitment to produce an environment whereby a stranger may find intimacy and healing to their loneliness. Hospitality offers the prospect for the spiritual transformation of the stranger.[14] In other words, a removal of hostility enables the the befriending of strangers.[15] Whether the relationship with a stranger is as intimate as a parent and child, or as stoic as a professional to a client, the true spiritual life considers others to be guests who are worthy of our attention and care.
The church is uniquely positioned in our world to provide a setting that embraces strangers as friends. Believers within the intimate fellowship of a church community have the privileged opportunity to invite outsiders in. Believers are especially enabled to reach out to others, offering wholeness through healing, receptivity and accountability.[16] As we effectively move from loneliness to solitude, we are more efficiently enabled to reach out to one another in service. People trapped in loneliness are unable to fully receive and care for other lonely people. But, the embrace of the first movement of the spiritual life enables us to more easily embrace the second. Consequently, the embrace of the second movement of the spiritual life enables others to begin to embrace the first. As we reach out away from ourselves, releasing our hold on our own souls, we enrich others, and paradoxically, ourselves.[17] A poor-in-spirit heart, a meek and humble attitude of the soul, rewards a person with spiritual wealth.[18]
Reaching Out to Our God:
The Third Movement: From Illusion to Prayer
The most important and difficult aspect to spiritual life, according to Nouwen, is the third movement of his paradigm. The conversion from illusion to prayer provides the crucial, practical daily undergirding of the spiritual life.[19] We each live in an illusive reality, Nouwen argues, with limitations and a finite existence. We must reach out beyond this fragile and terminal reality “toward our loving God in who all life is anchored.” The first two movements of the spiritual life must be “embedded in [the] broader, deeper, and higher reality from which they receive their vitality.”[20] This is not to say that the third movement is chronologically pursuant, nor an evolutionary conclusion of the first two. The movement from illusion to prayer is simply the most important aspect to the development of the spiritual life. After all, this is the movement whereby we reach out to our God, who is “eternally real and from whom all reality comes forth.”[21]
The manner in which we reach out to God is through prayer. Prayer enables us to admit our mortal condition alongside our immortal longings. We live under an illusive expectation that this world should operate under an immortal order. As a result, when mortality blindsides us, we experience frustration, act out violence, express disappointed yearnings, and lapse into wishful thinking.[22] Prayer becomes the means by which we move from disenchantment into recognition and truth of immortality through a relationship with our God. Prayer provides the “loving intimacy” with God essential to a whole spiritual life.[23] Reaching out to our God through prayer permits us to encounter a truer reality than what we could tangibly conceive.
Prayer is the “first obligation” and the “highest calling” of any person.[24] It is both a responsibility before God and a gift received from God. Nouwen’s paradigm depends upon this paradox. Prayer is the reaching out to our God who is beyond our reach. Prayer is also the reception of God’s presence manifested through intimate connection. Prayer is thus a mystery, something unattainable and incomprehensible and yet fully sensible. As we reach out to God, presenting our concerns and adoration, his peace which transcends all understanding guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.[25] Prayer, then, becomes the most “basic receptive attitude” of our lives.[26] In everything, by prayer, we petition and present our inner-most self to God. Through a Biblical foundation, through attending silence, and through the mentoring community of those experienced in prayer,[27] we can begin to develop a spiritually authentic heart, free from the limitations of mortal fantasy.
Conclusion:
One of the most beautiful aspects of Nouwen’s paradigm is that he begins with the brokenness of loneliness and ends with the fulfillment of relationship with God. Ultimately in the spiritual life we move from a status of dire isolation and anxious hostility to one of confident hospitality and intimate fellowship. As we spiritually develop within this paradigm, we are prompted by the Holy Spirit to invite others to experience the intimacy of God too. In this way, Nouwen’s paradigm for spiritual life effectively establishes practical parameters for the vision and theological texture of paradigmatic spirituality and discipleship within church ministry.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ~ Nouwen, Henri J.M. Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (New York: Image Book, 1975).
[1] Nouwen, Henri J.M. Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (New York: Image Book, 1975), Foreward, first paragraph.
[2] Introduction, 2nd page. One interesting note: Nouwen begins his introduction with the declaration that spirituality cannot be measured or systematized into different levels, stages or phases. Nouwen continues shortly thereafter, however, to use words like “deepen” and “sharpen”. Could it be that we must retain the concept of “measurement” in order to gauge our “progress” in the spiritual life? Would Nouwen consider that people could “digress” in their spiritual life? An affirmative answer would imply some form of measurement.
[3] Nouwen, 30.
[4] Nouwen, 34-35.
[5] Nouwen, 39.
[6] Nouwen, 37.
[7] Nouwen, 43.
[8] Nouwen, 48.
[9] Nouwen, 50.
[10] Nouwen, 52-62.
[11] Nouwen, 65.
[12] Nouwen, 66. Jesus commands us to “love your neighbor as thyself” and to “love your enemy”; Matthew 5:43-45.
[13] Nouwen, 55.
[14] Nouwen, 71.
[15] Nouwen, 79.
[16] Nouwen, 93-100.
[17] Nouwen, 103.
[18] Matthew 5:2-3.
[19] Nouwen, 109.
[20] Nouwen, 113.
[21] Nouwen, 114.
[22] Nouwen, 116-121.
[23] Nouwen, 122.
[24] Nouwen, 123.
[25] Philippians 4:6-7.
[26] Nouwen, 133.
[27] Nowen, 134-138. I do not read a New Age worldview in Nouwen’s suggestion of a “spirit-guide”. His definition of a guide is another human being who will help another connect with God through prayer, based on Scripture. The spirit guide could be a Christian from history who left guidelines or models for prayer. Or it could be an experienced, living, believer.
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