Spiritual Direction

Author, priest and teacher Henri Nouwen understood the spiritual life to be a journey of faith and transformation, deepened by accountability, community, and ministry. But although he counseled many people during his lifetime, these principles of spiritual direction were never written down. Now two of Nouwen’s longtime students, Michael Christensen and Rebecca Laird, have taken his famous course in spiritual direction and supplemented it with his unpublished writings to create Spiritual Direction, the definitive work on Nouwen’s thoughts about the Christian life. Stories, readings, questions for reflection and guided journal writing provide an unparalleled resource for spiritual direction, both for individuals and small groups. Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996) was the author of With Open Hands, Reaching Out, The Wounded Healer, Making All Things New, and many other bestsellers. He was the senior pastor of L’Arche Daybreak in Toronto, Canada, a community where men and women with mental disabilities and their assistants create a home for one another. Michael J. Christensen, Ph.D., studied with Henri Nouwen at Yale Divinity School (1979-1981), and now serves on the board of Directors of the Henri Nouwen Society. Rebecca Laird, M.A., is a certified spiritual director, ordained minister, and currently the Associate for Spiritual Formation at Central Presbyterian Church in Summit, NJ. “Read this book and you will understand why I chose Henri Nouwen as a companion on my own spiritual journey.” - Bill Moyers