Item 1556 - Listen to the inner voice

1 p. of textual records

This item is a half-page article entitled: Listen to the Inner Voice by Henri Nouwen, published in the National Catholic Reporter, May 17, 1974. Nouwen continues his emphasis on the difference between loneliness and solitude. The article begins with Nouwen saying, “ Sometimes I wonder if the reason so many people ask support, advice and counsel from so many is not, for a large part, due to the fact that they have lost contact with their innermost self and are no longer able to listen to the voices speaking in the center of their solitude.” Nouwen uses an extensive quote from R. M. Rilke to someone who asks about his vocation as a poet. Rilke emphasizes the need to look inward, to question whether there is necessity. Nouwen goes on to say “As long as I am trying to run away from my loneliness I am constantly looking for distractions with an inexhaustible need to be entertained and kept busy. Then I become a passive victim of a world asking for my idolizing attention…but when I have converted my loneliness into solitude, the world starts losing its claim on me…”.

Published in National Catholic Reporter, ca. 17 May 1974.
"5/17/74" written on the article.
There is a small part of the page ripped from the right hand side.
There is a head shot photo of Nouwen, taken by Ron van den Bosch. See P6433 on Page 11 of Album 3 for a full-size version of the photo.
The themes of solitude and loneliness and the need for quiet solitude in life are developed further in Nouwen's books: Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1974 and Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, Image Books, Doubleday, New York, 1975.

Added by L Joson, 7 November 2017