Thousands of people have been touched by Henri Nouwen's life and writings. He ranks among the great spiritual authors of the 20th Century and perhaps for all time. His personal honesty and open sharing of his own struggles, disappointments and anxieties as a Christian and a man showed such a genuine empathy and understanding for his readers that one could sense his spiritual presence and even "friendship". It was as if he were speaking to each of us personally. He touched on the core issues and feelings of what it means to live this all very human and Christian life. And because he made himself so honest and vulnerable to us we were able to know the real man, feel a closeness to him and he to us, and feel a mutual love for him and from him.
       Nouwen said, "When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." [Wisdom Notes]. This is a fitting description of himself.
Nouwen Chapel Mural at Yale

       As transparent as Nouwen was with his audiences, few people knew of his on-going efforts to cope with and resolve same-sex attraction or homosexuality. Only a very few people knew of this struggle, yet this was an issue for Nouwen throughout his life and is an unseen backdrop to most of his writings. While Nouwen was apparently non-judgmental about Christians who lived their lives in a gay relationship, his own personal, biblical and moral convictions led him to adhere to his vow of chastity and choose to live as a celibate man.
       Yet, as is true for most same-sex attraction (SSA) people, Nouwen had a deep and ever-present and pressing need to be loved and to love someone of the same gender, which had been unfulfilled and left him feeling incomplete from his childhood. Nouwen knew that being truly loved and being able to truly love another is the core issue of all our lives for we were created in the image of God Whose Name and Nature is Love. Between the lines of all Nouwen's writings is this unfulfilled need to love and be loved, a love he apparently experienced then lost towards the end of his life.

       Though Nouwen never spoke publicly of his SSA issues, or specifically identified his SSA issues, he has much to share about the emotional and psychological conditions underlying SSA. It is this perspective that will be examined in his writings, especially in the writing he called his "secret journal", published as The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey through Anguish to Freedom, Doubleday New York, 1996. It can be read online at The Inner Voice of Love. Nouwen had wonderful insight into the inner life of the SSA Christian because he could search out and effectively articulate his own woundedness. This is the reason I have used his writings and life as the focus of this website. I believe "The Inner Voice" offers a substantial program of potential healing for SSA Christians.

       About this book the HenriNouwen,org website says, "Certainly one of the most compelling of Nouwen’ s books. It’s power lies in its strictly personal nature, a private journal not intended for publication. For eight years it sat in a drawer in Nouwen’s room, shared only with closest friends. Over the years friends urged that it be released for publication. Nouwen resisted throughout, insisting that it was too personal. Fortunately, only months before his death, he yielded to importunings and after the necessary editing released the journal to his publisher. The record of a fierce inner struggle following what he called "an interrupted friendship," a friendship that he had come to depend on, only to find himself seemingly abandoned and rejected. He left his community, went into counseling therapy, and during this period, after each counseling session wrote a "spiritual imperative" — "a command to myself that had emerged from our sessions. These imperatives were directed to my own heart. They were not meant for anyone but myself." Which is precisely what makes them so powerful.".

       I had the opportunity to speak with Henri Nouwen when he was teaching at the Divinity School at Yale University in New Haven. At the time he didn't know that I ministered to Christian men who were resolving and managing SSA in a biblically faithful way. He didn't know that I specialized in S.O.R.T. [Sexual Orientation Resolution Therapy]. But even in this meeting I sensed that this was an unspoken issue for him.
I was certain that I sensed his issues with SSA because I knew about his family background, read his books, and experienced him as one of the most sensitive, humble, honest and transparent people I’d ever met. I felt affection for him immediately.

       Using his secret journal "The Inner Voice of Love", I want to comment on many of the "counsels" he gives to others as they conceal and reveal helpful insights from his own life for those Christians who are resolving and managing SSA. I have organized and outlined the 64 "counsels" from "The Inner Voice of Love" into three categories: Causes, Symptoms and Healing. I have woven these helpful spiritual counsels together with my own therapeutic inisghts and teachings from my many years of work with SSA Christians. I believe the Lord Jesus, our Father God and the the Holy Spirit will minister these counsels to you for your growth and healing.

Some Evangelical Christians believe Nouwen was not always very orthodox. He sometimes blurred the lines between biblical Christianity and other religions as did Thomas Merton whom Nouwen greatly admired. Sometimes he was viewed as "new age" in his thinking and practice. Nouwen was also thought to adopt a belief in "universalism", that is, that all people will go to heaven, and that Jesus is not the only way to heaven. Likewise, it should be noted that Nouwen strongly upheld the official teaching of Rome regarding homosexuality, though he remained pastorally sympathetic to gay people of whom he had several friends.

All things for good...Romans 8:28      Compline in honor of HN