Item 1701 - A new life among the handicapped: farewell to Harvard

9 p. of textual records

This item is a 9 page article by Henri Nouwen entitled, ‘A New Life Among the Handicapped’ published in the New Oxford Review, Vol. LIII, No.7, September 1986, pp.5 – 13. The article is identified as the first installment of a series of articles taken from a Nouwen diary written during his time as priest-in-residence at L’Arche, Trosley-Breuil, France. The excerpts from Nouwen’s diary in this article begin August 13, 1985 and end September 24. In the first entry Nouwen describes this as ‘the first day of my new life! Nouwen writes of meeting Madame Vanier, of his leaving Harvard, his new quarters and his sense of how different this life is from his very busy life in academia. The entries that follow include reflections on how Jean Vanier began L’Arche with Pere Thomas Phillipe, Nouwen’s longing to be able to live a simpler life, his gratitude for the prayerful support of his friends, his hurt and anger when a friend fails to visit him. Nouwen speaks of his daily time spent in the Oratory at Trosly: ‘In many ways the Oratoire is the heart of l’Arche…every time I enter the Oratoire I feel a deep rest coming over me…’ Nouwen also speaks of one of the foyers he visits which is called La Forestiere where the most severely handicapped live. Further entries speak of the people he meets and include his reflections on their lives.

Item is 1 of a series of 10 articles, later published in: Nouwen, Henri, Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey, Doubleday, N.Y., 1988. See also Published works series, items 1702, 1705, 1706, 1709, 1710, 1715, 1717, 1718, and 1719.

Published in New Oxford Review 53, no. 7 (September 1986): 5-13.

Added by L Joson, 13 November 2017
Revised by L Joson, 22 June 2018