I think I’ve established the fact that I am a supreme book nerd. I pretty much start salivating when I walk into Borders. For some reason, I don’t get quite the same effect at Barnes & Noble. Not sure why.

Anyway. I’ve been reading a book by one of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen, titled The Way of the Heart. The book is based on the teachings of the Desert Fathers of the 4th and 5th century. The idea is that in order to grow in your salvation you must “flee, be silent, and pray.”

Thus the three tenets of the book are solitude, silence, and prayer. We need each one to be able to tune out the distractions and tune into God’s heart for us.

Solitude keeps us from passively drifting along with society and its values and being conformed by the world around us. It takes us out of the world, so we can be in the world and not of it. We’ll never have time to get away to spend time with God unless we make time.

Silence is in response to what Nouwen calls the “wordy world” where we are constantly being bombarded with messages all day long. Silence means that the words we do speak have more meaning because they are fewer and more deliberately chosen. It means we avoid the pitfalls of words spoken flippantly or angrily or vainly. It allows us to hear God speaking to us.

Prayer is not so much finding out more about God and gaining knowledge of His will, but in immersing all of our being into God and being transformed by Him there. It is an acknowledged dependence on God in everything for everything always.

I am 79 pages in, and I am almost tempted to start the book over when I get finished. I can’t say that about too many books I’ve read, and I’ve read plenty. Remember me the uber book nerd?

I recommend anything by Henri Nouwen or Brennan Manning to speak directly to your world wherever you are. At least that’s what happens for me when I read either one of them.

I think I’ll close with a quote from Henri Nouwen:

“It is in solitude that compassionate solidarity grows. In solitude we realize that nothing is alien to us, that the roots of all conflict, war, injustice, cruelty, hatred, jealousy, and envy are deeply anchored in our own heart. In solitude our heart of stone can be turned into a heart of flesh, a rebellious heart into a contrite heart, and a closed heart into a heart that can open itself to all suffering people in a gesture of solidarity.”