The weekly questions for reflection for Henri Nouwen's book, Reaching Out, will be posted here. Please remember that you don't need to answer all the questions; in fact, you don't need to answer any of them, if you don't want to. They are simply given here to help you to engage meaningfully and reflectively with the text.

Is it proper that a book on spirituality not offer answers or solutions?

With regards to Christ, His Church, and other matters of faith, are you comfortable with, "some people say..., others say..."?

How do you answer Christ’s question to His Apostles, "But what do you say? Who do you say I am?"

Is it good to look for spiritual experiences?

Do the polarities – between loneliness and solitude, hostility and hospitality, illusion and prayer – resonate with you?

Between competition and togetherness (p. 23)

Do you agree with the statement, "we are living in a world where even the most intimate relationships have become part of competition and rivalry?

Have you ever felt empty or sad at a party or get together?

Are you afraid of being alone, of being without unconditional love?

Avoidance of the painful void (p. 26)

People often bury their pains in distraction. How do you do this?

Does creativity ask for an encounter with loneliness?

Does fear of this encounter limit your possibilities for self-expression?

Have you any free time to be alone? Are you comfortable with just your own company?

The danger of the final solution (p. 29)

Have you encountered people who thought you were there to take their loneliness away?

Whom have you used to try to relieve your own loneliness?

Have those relationships continued? Have they continued well or have they changed?

"When we do not protect with great care our inner mystery, we will never be able to form community." Do you agree? What can you say about this statement?

Together, yet not too near (p. 32)

Is there such a thing as too much honesty and openness?

Have you had difficulties with establishing appropriate boundaries in your life?

What is the difference between a boundary and a wall?

From desert to garden (p. 34)

Can you see the possibility of turning loneliness into solitude?

Do you have the courage and the faith to face enter into your own loneliness to transform it?

Nouwen says, "the movement from loneliness to solitude ... is the beginning any spiritual life because it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play." Does such a statement give you hope?

Do you sometimes (or often or always) seek spiritual direction or the counsel of friends in order to find someone to relieve you of your own burdens?

Would you continue to seek the counsel of someone who did not take away your burdens or offer easy comfort, but encouraged you to stay with your problems, to endure the difficulties and the pain, and to find the lessons they have to teach?

To put it bluntly, do you prefer comfort that may offer no cure to a cure that may offer no comfort?

Solitude of heart (p. 37)

Do you have opportunities to withdraw from the obligations and distractions of your daily life?

Can you distinguish easily in your own life between

the restless and the restful,

the driven and the free,

the lonely and the solitary?

The beginning of the spiritual life (p. 39)

Do you have the inner sensitivity to lay a good beginning of a spiritual life?

To live the question (p. 40)

Have you listened carefully to your own heart and discerned a sense of your vocation?

Are you comfortable living with (difficult) questions instead of having (easy) answers?

Nouwen says, "Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible." How can this be?

Holy ground (p. 44)

Have you ever had an encounter with anyone of which you could say, "From now on, wherever you go, or wherever I go, all the ground between us will be holy ground"?

Community as an inner quality (p. 46)

What is necessary for our encounters with other people (and with God?) to move beyond what is superficial, take place with depth and meaning?

Reactionary life style (p. 49)

Nouwen says that the movement from loneliness to solitude can convert our relationships from ones of fearful reaction to ones of loving response. In what ways is that attractive to you? What relationships do you have that need that sort of conversion?

Can you identify some of your daily activities that are born out of impulsive reactions rather than out of freely-chosen actions?

Alertness in solitude (p. 50)

Do you agree that the priest’s story, with which Nouwen begins this section, is a sad one? When might disengagement from the world be more than an option, but rather what you ought to do?

Molding interruptions (p. 52)

Are your "interruptions" really interruptions?

Can you see the hand of God in the affairs of your daily life, perhaps in the small events more than in the large ones, in the interruptions, the failures, the distractions, the needs of others, etc.?

Do you agree that, seen from the vantage point of solitude,

fate can become opportunity,

wounds a warning, and

paralysis an invitation to find deeper sources of vitality?

A contrite heart (p. 54)

Is contrition of heart rightly a personal and private reaction to your own spiritual state, or should the troubles of our own family, parish, workplace, and world inform our contrition?

Have the words of Psalm 130, "Lord, I have called," which we sing at every Vespers, become empty and glib for us? Have they been robbed of their power by familiarity? Re-read the psalm and find out.

The burden of reality (p. 55)

Can we bear the burden of reality?

Is it true that we dislike "extremists" and "fanatics" with certain kinds of messages because they remind us too painfully of hurts we prefer to avoid or deny? Whom do you not like to hear?

Are you dismissive of problems that you are powerless to do anything about?

Protest out of solitude (p. 57)

Comment on Nouwen’s statement, "... although the events of the day are out of our hands, they should never be out of our hearts" (p. 57)

Nouwen says, "only when our mind has descended into our heart can we expect a lasting response to well up from our innermost self" (p. 58). Where in the Orthodox tradition do we speak of the mind descending into the heart?

Can you see ways in which Nouwen’s presentation of a "general" Christian spirituality can sit comfortably within an Orthodox context?

For all but a few of the Saints who have an extraordinary sense of human solidarity, it is too much to say that we are responsible for all human suffering. Still, is it true to say that we share in all human suffering? That we can respond to it?

Compassion (p. 59)

Can you comment on Merton’s statement, "There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion" (p. 59)?

Merton says further that "rejection of the world," and "contempt for the world," is not a choice but an evasion of choice (p. 60). Can the same thing be said, in Orthodox circles, about talk of "otherworldliness," "withdrawal from the world," or even of some conversions to Orthodoxy?

Is there such a thing as an interruption for a compassionate person?

Solidarity in pain (p. 60)

Instead of running away from pain, our own or others, can we find strength to touch them with compassion, and so bring healing and new strength?

Is it true that you cannot alleviate pain without sharing it? That is, can you be compassionate without "passion," i.e. suffering?

Do you agree with Nouwen that the movement from loneliness to solitude is not a withdrawal from, but a deeper engagement with, the world and with others?

How do you find Nouwen’s presentation so far?