HENRY J.M. NOUWEN
The inner voice of love
A Journey Through Anguish To Freedom
Darton, Lonman and Todd Ltd – London 1997

Acknowledgements

Connie Ellis was the first person who typed the manuscript of this book, and Conrad Wieczorek was the first person who edited it. Both have since died. I remember them with much affection and gratitude.
Kathy Christie, my secretary, and Susan Brown, my editor, have done a great deal to make this text ready for publication. I thank them both for their caring and competent work.
A special word of gratitude goes to my friend Wendy Greer, who encouraged me during the past three years to overcome my hesitation to publish this book and offered many good ideas for changes and corrections. The generous financial support of Wendy and her husband, Jay, and their many friends has been a great source of inspiration to me.
I also want to thank Alice Allen and Ed Goebe1s for he1ping me with all the contractual work necessary for this publication.
Finally, many thanks to Bill Barry and Trace Murphy at Doubleday for their visits to me at the Daybreak community, for their continued interest in my writing, especially in this book, and for their flexibility and patience during the preparation of the final manuscript.

This book is my secret journal. It was written during the most difficult period of my life, from December 1987 to June 1988. That was a time of extreme anguish, during which I wondered whether I would be able to hold on to my life. Everything carne crashing down - my self-esteem, my energy to live and work, my sense of being loved, my hope for healing, my trust in God . . . everything. Here I was, a writer about the spiritual life, known as someone who loves God and gives hope to people, flat on the ground and in total darkness.
What had happened? l had come face to face with my own nothingness. It was as if all that had given my life meaning was pulled away and l could see nothing in front of me but a bottomless abyss.
The strange thing was that this happened shortly after I had found my true home. After many years of life in universities, where I never felt fully at home, I had become a member of L'Arche, a community of men and women with mental disabilities. I had been received with open arms, given all the attention and affection I could ever hope for, and offered a safe and loving pIace to grow spiritually as well as emotionally. Everything seemed ideal. But precisely at that time I fell apart - as if I needed a safe place to hit bottom!

Just when all those around me were assuring me they loved me, cared for me, appreciated me, yes, even admired me, I experienced myself as a useless, unloved, and despicable person. Just when people were putting their arms around me, I saw the endless depth of my human misery and felt that there was nothing worth living for. Just when I had found a home, I felt absolutely homeless. Just when I was being praised for my spiritual insights, I felt devoid of faith. Just when people were thanking me for bringing them closer to God, I felt that God had abandoned me. It was as if the house I had finally found had no floors. The anguish completely paralysed me. I could no longer sleep. I cried uncontrollably for hours. I could not be reached by consoling words or arguments. I no longer had any interest in other people's problems. I lost all appetite for food and could not appreciate the beauty of music, art, or even nature. All had become darkness. Within me there was one long scream coming from a place I didn't know existed, a place full of demons.

All of this was triggered by the sudden interruption of a friendship. Going to L'Arche and living with very vulnerable people, I had gradually let go of many of my inner guards and opened my heart more fully to others. Among my many friends, one had been able to touch me in a way I had never been touched before.. Our friendship encouraged me to allow myself to be loved and cared for with greater trust and confidence. It was a totally new experience for me, and it brought immense joy and peace. It seemed as if a door of my interior life had been opened, a door that had remained locked during my youth and most of my adult life.

But this deeply satisfying friendship became the road to my anguish, because soon I discovered that the enormous space that had been opened for me could not be filled by the one who had opened it. I became possessive, needy, and dependent, and when the friendship finally had to be interrupted, I fell apart. I felt abandoned, rejected, and betrayed. Indeed, the extremes touched each other.

Intellectually I knew that no human friendship could fulfil the deepest longing of my heart. I knew that only God could give me what I desired. I knew that I had been set on a road where nobody could walk with me but Jesus. But all this knowledge didn't help me in my pain.

I realised quite soon that it would be impossible to survive this mentally and spiritually debilitating anguish without leaving my community and surrendering myself to people who would be able to lead me to a new freedom. Through a unique grace, I found the place and the people to give me the psychological and spiritual attention I needed. During the six months that followed, I lived through an agony that seemed never to end. But the two guides who were given to me did not leave me alone and\kept gently moving me from one day to the next, holding on to me as parents hold a wounded child.

To my surprise, I never lost the ability to write. In fact, writing became part of my struggle for survival. It gave me the little distance from myself that I needed to keep from drowning in my despair. Nearly every day, usually immediately after meeting with my guides, I wrote a 'spiritual imperative' a command to myself that had emerged from our session. These imperatives were directed to my own heart. They were not meant for anyone but myself.

In the first weeks it seemed as if my anguish only got worse. Very old places of pain that had been hidden to me were opened up, and fearful experiences from my early years were brought to consciousness. The interruption of friendship forced me to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there, to choose, in the face of it all, not death but life. Thanks to my attentive and caring guides, I was able day by day to take very small steps towards life. I could easily have become bitter, resentful, depressed, and suicidal. That this did not happen was the result of the struggle expressed in this book.

When I returned to my community, not without great apprehension, I reread all I had written during the time of my 'exile'. It seemed so intense and raw that I could hardly imagine it would speak to anyone but me. Even though Bill Barry, a friend and a publisher at Doubleday, felt strongly that my most personal struggle could be of great help to many people, I was too dose to it to give it away. Instead I started work on a book about Rembrandt's painting The Return of the Prodigal Son and found there a safe place for some of the insights I had gained from my struggles.

But when, eight years later, prompted by my friend Wendy Greer, I read my secret journal again, I was able to look back at that period of my life and see it as a time of intense purification that had led me gradua1ly to a new inner freedom, a new hope, and a new creativity. The 'spiritual imperatives' I had put down now seemed less private and even possibly of some value to others. Wendy and several other friends encouraged me not to hide this painful experience from those who have come to know me through my various books on the spiritual life. They reminded me that the books I had written since my period of anguish could not have been written without the experience I had gained by living through that time. They asked, 'Why keep this away from those who have been nurtured by your spiritual insights? Isn't it important for your friends dose by and far away to know the high cost of these insights? Wouldn't they find it a source of consolation to see that light and darkness, hope and despair, love and fear are never very far from each other, and that spiritual freedom often requires a fierce spiritual battle?'

Their questions finally convinced me to give these pages to Bill Barry and make them available in this book. I hope and pray that I did the right thing.

Do not read too many of these spiritual imperatives at once! They were written over a long period of time and need to be read that way too. They also do not need to be read in the order in which they appear. The table of contents gives you an idea of which pages might be most helpfu1 to you. These spiritual imperatives are meant to be like salt for the meal of your life. Too much salt might spoil it, but a little at a time can make it tasty!