Henri Nouwen was a man of many worlds—Dutch, Catholic, professor at Yale—yet he walked away from the shining halls of academia into the gentle margins of life. He followed Jesus’ footprints into the quiet, often overlooked sanctuary of L’Arche, where people with disabilities live together in community.
That world was not unfamiliar to me. My brother Jerry carries his own story—one shaped by the way others whispered, be careful around that young man, and by the harsh names they hurled like stones. Retard seemed to be the most common. Perhaps that is part of why Nouwen’s choice has stayed with me. He exchanged the polished halls of prestige for the sacred ground of obscurity.
And then he wrote a book, Show Me the Way—a title soaked with longing.
