Wounded Prophet: A Portrait Of Henri J. M. Nouwen By Michael Ford

(Darton, Longman and Todd, Ltd., and Doubleday, 1999, p.228)

Michael Ford is currently a news producer and broadcaster for BBC Radio. Well-traveled in reporting on religious news throughout the world, his job description clearly labels him a "media person." Yet there is another strain in his character, a very foundational one, on which he thrives. Early-on in his career as a newspaper reporter, a friend gave him a paperback copy of a book by Henri Nouwen.

It's title: "Reaching Out." As for so many who have just been introduced to Henri Nouwen, the experience marked the beginning of an engagement that was to intensify over the years.

Somewhere in mid-career Ford, an Anglican, temporarily left full-time journalism to study theology at the University of Bristol. Drawn in his new calling to the writings of Christian mystics, he again found support in Nouwen's writings. Thanks to his eventual position as a reporter for BBC, he had the opportunity to meet Nouwen in person through an interview.

The meeting, which took place on August 28, 1992, was a fortuitous one, for the two would never meet again. Four years later Nouwen's friends and followers were shocked by the announcement of his sudden death by heart attack in a hospital in Hilversum, Holland. It was a difficult time of loss. No warning. No preparation. But as in the death of every loved one, sorrow must be followed by rehearsing and preserving memories. His reporter's instincts kicked in, and Ford decided to do what reporters do: with a sense of mission he began the process of contacting those who were closest to Nouwen, soliciting their stories, gathering their memories.

From the start, the author makes clear: "This is not intended to be a full-scale biography, an assessment of (Nouwen's) literary output or a systematic theology of his thinking, but an exploration of the person of Henri Nouwen as a wounded prophet for our time." The book follows a thematic pattern rather than a chronological format, and engages the reader in a most personal, satisfying way. Traveling throughout Europe and North America, Ford interviewed over 100 people - friends, colleagues, students, mentors, the famous, the not famous - whose candor enriches and informs this essentially loving portrait.

Throughout the book Ford seems to steer the reader away from separating Nouwen the wounded person and Nouwen the prophet, closing any perceived divide neatly and insightfully:

"He (Nouwen) knew that he taught best those things which he needed to learn most." His  appeal to his readers was precisely his honesty about his own struggles and vulnerabilities. As Jurjen Beumer puts it in his biography, Nouwen in his writings "becomes a mirror in which the reader's own life becomes visible."

Until a greater than Ford arrives on the scene, "WOUNDED PROPHET: A PORTRAIT OF HENRI NOUWEN," will be the standard text for introducing Nouwen followers to the inner and outer life of one of the most influential spiritual writers of our time. It is highly recommended.

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