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Quotes from The Wounded Healer (Henry Nouwen)

August 23, 2011 By ray

The first and most basic task required of the minister of tomorrow therefore is to clarify the immense confusion which can arise when people enter this new internal world. It is a painful fact indeed to realize how poorly prepared most Christian leaders prove to be when they are invited to be spiritual leaders in the true sense. Most of them are used to thinking in terms of large-scale organization, getting people together in churches, schools and hospitals, and running the show as a circus director. They have become unfamiliar with, and even somewhat afraid of, the deep and significant movements of the spirit. I am afraid that in a few decades the Church will be accused of having failed its most basic task: to offer men creative ways to communicate with the source of human life.

But how can we avoid this danger? I think by no other way than to enter ourselves first of all into the center of our existence and become familiar with the complexities of our inner lives… The key word here is articulation. The man who can articulate the movements of his inner life, who can give names to his varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. He is able to create space for Him whose heart is greater than his, whose eyes see more than his, and whose hands can heal more than his.

This articulation, I believe, is the basis for a spiritual leadership of the future, because only he who is able to articulate his own experience can offer himself to others as a source of clarification. The Christian leader is, therefore, first of all, a man who is willing to put his own articulated faith at the disposal of those who ask his help. In this sense he is a servant of servants because he is the first to enter the promised but dangerous land, the first to tell those who are afraid what he has seen, heard and touched. (p. 37-38)

Filed Under: Quotes Tagged With: henry nouwen, leadership

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