“Spiritual Imperatives”
The Inner Voice of Love (Nouwen, Henri J.M., Image Books, 1998) is a spiritual guide describing the personal crisis experienced by Dutch Catholic priest, spiritual leader and author Henri J.M. Nouwen, 1932-1996. (Nouwen published thirty-nine books in his life.)
Religion and spirituality is not a main interest of mine, so I don’t usually read Christian memoirs or spiritual guides. But I was attracted by the book description: “a ‘secret journal’ … written during the most difficult period of his life.” A product of Yale Divinity School and Harvard Divinity School, Nouwen was ordained in 1957. His spiritual crisis happened in Ontario, 1987-1988.
The Inner Voice of Love consists of the spiritual guidance Nouwen wrote for himself — in the imperative mood and in the second person — in the context of “coming home to God’s love.” He says he had a friendship that was “interrupted,” which triggered the crisis. (I wondered if it was a love affair, but haven’t readily found any assertion that it was.) The crisis was one of loss, heartbreak, longing insatiably for this friend’s affection. He wondered whether he would “be able to hold onto [his] life.” It was hard for him to accept that this crisis had come to him — a writer about the spiritual life, one who “loves God and gives hope to people.” Yet he felt his life suddenly had no meaning at all. He felt “useless, unloved, and despicable.”
But he kept writing. He met with two “spiritual guides” and after each meeting, he wrote a “spiritual imperative” for himself to follow. He considered the writing too intense and raw to be of use to anyone else, he says. Nevertheless, he showed this writing to a friend who was a publisher. The friend wanted to publish it, insisting it would help others. (Oh that all writers of useful journals were so well connected.) Nouwen refused publication for eight years, after which he reread his “secret journal,” showed it to other friends, and published it.
As I began reading, I felt that his describing his book as a “secret journal” that was “too intense and raw” to show to others was false humility, or a performance of being vulnerable, in a man who knew people looked up to him. After all, he showed the journal to his publisher friend soon after he wrote it. I also felt that only a male author could get away with describing his book as a “secret journal” without being laughed at.
He does not write about the friendship he lost, which sparked his crisis. I was disappointed that the book didn’t depict that, nor what went on in his outer, daily life while he was going through his crisis and writing the journal. Today, vivid scenes would have to form the meat of the book in order to make it sell. But now I see the effectiveness of what he did write, which no doubt was helpful to readers, including me. Still wish I knew exactly what happened.
As I read, I highlighted bits that resonated with me: Bits about accepting one’s tendency to crave affection without dwelling in that craving (“addiction”). About heartbreak, with musings on whether vanished love was real and whether it can stay with you in any constructive way. About self acceptance as a person who can be hurt that badly. Nouwen has his own way of describing dwelling in self-acceptance and in your unique strengths even when (including when) others can’t see them.
I feel a calling to write about my childhood loss of my mother and my fraught choices as a young woman — choices made by an adult with free will, but actually constrained by guardrails that I unknowingly built to protect me after my loss. The people I’m close to support this calling. Young love reveals our childhood emotional training. Lasting love and self-actualization see us grow beyond that set-up. I’m thankful I can point to specific places where I’ve gone far beyond my “guardrails.”
I realized I want to write, even if only as journal entries, something like Nouwen’s spiritual imperatives, similar in format and presentation: second-person universal advice based on vulnerable feelings about my inner life. I do feel I had a spiritual crisis and have gone a long way toward resolving it. I’ve re-examined my earlier life and have seen and accepted the sad, unfortunate, unfair events and treatment (neglect) that put me in a crisis more than once.
So, here’s my first “spiritual imperative,” after Nouwen:
Trust your own process. Your intellect, your conscience, and your inner child are all working in healthy ways. You are loved; you are able to see that you are loved. Focus on that love. Do your best work for that love. If you have turmoil, trust that it is a process with its own direction and will look and feel different every month. Your mental and emotional processes are trustworthy.
