The Experience of Studying Hebrew as a Student Who is Blind
Sarah Blake is a licensed minister with the Church of God (Anderson, IN). She is available to provide biblical teaching, ministry seminars, or music ministry for your church. Hear samples from some of her presentations and contact her for booking information.
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Life of the Beloved was written in response to a challenge: “Why don't you write something about the spiritual life for me and my friends? ... Speak to us about the deepest yearning of our hearts, about our many wishes, about hope; not about the many strategies for survival, but about trust; not about new methods of satisfying our emotional needs, but about love. Speak to us about a vision larger than our changing perspectives and about a voice deeper than the clamorings of our mass media. Yes, speak to us about something or someone greater than ourselves. Speak to us about... God." (pp. 19-20, 22-23)
Henri Nouwen begins by discussing the formation of his friendship with Fred over the years from the day when they first met until the time of the writing of the book. Fred is Jewish and lives in New York City; Nouwen is Catholic and lives in Tornnto, serving in a community of people with disabilities. After painting a picture of a friendship that grew unexpectedly close despite marked religious differences, Nouwen shares his reflections on living the life of the beloved in the form of an address to his friend.
Nouwen discusses the life of the beloved using the metaphor of bread. Like Jesus, we are to be bread for the world. Like the bread from the Last Supper, we are taken, blessed, broken, and given. In separate chapters, he discusses what it means to be taken, blessed, broken, and given. At the end of each chapter, he provides practical ideas for claiming one’s takenness, blessedness, brokenness, and givenness.
Finally, he ends with a discussion of "living as the beloved," in which he emphasizes the need to free oneself from the effort to prove one's worth and to "say yes" to God's question: "Do you love me?"
In the epilogue, Nouwen reveals that Fred was not satisfied with the book. Fred's criticism revealed that Nouwen had failed to address a number of questions that should be answered in order for his writing to speak effectively to people who were unfamiliar with Christian concepts. However, the book would ultimately find a purpose; and this purpose is revealed in the final pages. The book would be published for Christian readers. While this did not accomplish Nouwen’s original goal, he takes comfort in knowing that Fred’s challenge was useful in speaking to the needs of his readers.
Nouwen’s personal tone enables him to speak directly to the reader in areas of woundedness in ways that few authors do. When speaking of Fred’s divorce and subsequent grief, he describes Fred’s physical reactions so vividly that he could easily be describing grief associated with another loss or abandonment. When he says, "I tell you all of this because I know how moody you and I can be,” and then goes on to describe moodiness in great detail (p. 73), it is obvious that he does indeed know. His knowledge cuts to the core of the moody person’s heart and says that there is hope for calming the moodiness.
As I read Nouwen’s words about being treated as “set aside,” his effort to prove that he was “just me,” and the importance of “claiming for ourselves that we are chosen” (p. 53), I wrestled with an old familiar struggle. On one hand, I must accept my disabilities as things that “set me apart” as chosen by God to be used in specific times, places, or ways. On the other hand, I often feel the need to prove that I am “just me” or to manipulate the emphasis of conversation so that one aspect of myself is not used to set me apart so much. People often overemphasize my blindness in relationship to my other special needs because it is what they can see. My other disabilities are invisible and thus difficult to comprehend. At times, people place me on a pedestal, admire me for accomplishing simple daily tasks that they perceive as impossible to do without vision. When they do not allow me to reveal that these tasks are achievable by learning some alternative techniques, I remain separated—not because of my ministry but because of my “disability”. I cannot transcend the barrier that humans have put between themselves and me. People are often more comfortable with their fear of blindness than with the idea that life as a blind person could become “natural”—not just for me but for others as well, even for them. When this barrier exists, the work of God through the circumstance of my other disabilities is sometimes hindered. If I have gone to a church to sing and the pastor has introduced me as a person who has accomplished great things in spite of blindness, it is difficult for me to tell a different story because the emphasis on blindness has set a tone regarding what people might expect from me.
Throughout my reading of this book, I often wondered why Nouwen did not introduce Fred to Jesus. Perhaps this is something they had talked about over the course of many years of friendship; and perhaps Nouwen was being respectful of Fred’s Jewishness and simply write about living as God’s beloved. However, I cannot imagine undertaking a writing project like this without laying some groundwork and answering the question: “Who is Jesus, and why should I care?”
It became obvious that Nouwen’s immersion in a Christian community made this book somewhat difficult for him to write. The idea of life exclusively in a Christian community is a bit foreign to me. When he wrote about Fred living in “a secular world,” I wondered what he meant. I thought, “Don’t we all live in a secular world? Don’t we all have ‘daily grind’ things to attend to, things that take away from our devotional and ministerial time?” I certainly do! From my unbelieving friends and family interacting with me on a regular basis to encountering young people who have had too much to drink on the street while I’m out walking with my dog, I live in a secular world. I need to live in it. It informs my ministry.
Nouwen, Henri J.M. Life of the Beloved. New York, NY: Crossroad Publishing, 2002.
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Sarah Blake graduated from Anderson University with an M.Div., professional distinction in Hebrew, in August, 2009. She was the 2009 recipient of the Donald Courtney fellowship in Christian Education at Anderson University; and her paper is published online. She provides biblical teaching for retreats, church services, and other special events; music ministry; and education for churches and community groups seeking to develop strategies for including people with disabilities. For more information about booking Sarah to speak at your church or community event, visit her services page.
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Sarah J. Blake