Part 3: Henri and Hope

Doubt is the friend of questions,
and doubt is the teacher of truth.
— Padrig O'Tauma

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
— Anaïs Nin

I remember exactly where I was when I finished Michael Ford’s 1999 biography of Henri Nouwen, Wounded Prophet - the second biography I had read about this world-renowned Dutch Catholic Priest, spiritual author, psychologist, and academic.

I was sitting on a plane flying to Los Angeles, California, to spend a week with my friends.

As I finished the biography an enormous well of emotion was tapped into and I couldn’t help but cry. In a completely unexpected way, I shut the book and with no success of holding back tears, I publicly broke down, undoubtably to the discomfort of the strangers around me.

This was not the kind of cry I was so familiar with in moments of late-night hopelessness and self-hatred; no, this was a cry of a different variety.