Item 1746 - A place where God wants to dwell

1 p. of textual records

This item is a one page article by Henri Nouwen entitled ‘A Place Where God wants to dwell’, published in Compass: A Jesuit Journal, Vol. 7, No. 4, September 1989, p. 34. Henri begins the article by describing his reading as a teacher of Christian spirituality and his discovery that you must be poor ‘so God can finally be with you’. Nouwen then goes on to describe his experience at l’Arche Daybreak in Richmond Hill Ontario and in particular his friendship with Adam Arnett. Nouwen describes Adam as a profoundly handicapped man who knows nothing of the world Nouwen has lived in and yet becomes for Nouwen, a teacher. Nouwen writes, “Daybreak turns our expectations upside down…Because of Adam’s weakness – his poverty – we can be united in ways that form the body. Because of Adam’s needs, we come to grips with our own’. Nouwen goes on to describe a l’Arche community as not a romantic place but one of struggle and a school of discipleship.

Published in Compass 7, no. 4 (September 1989): 34.
Used in Spiritual Formation: The Way of the Heart, Michael Christensen & Rebecca Laird, HarperCollins (2009).
This material was incorporated in a revised version in, Nouwen, Henri: ‘ Adam, God’s Beloved’, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y., 1997.

Added by L Joson, 14 November 2017