The Genesee Diary : Report from a Trappist Monastery - Softcover

Nouwen, Henri J M

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0232521433 ISBN 13: 9780232521436

Publisher: Non Basic Stock Line, 1995

Synopsis

During his seven-month stay in a Trappist monastery, Henri Nouwen had a unique opportunity to explore crucial issues of the spiritual life and discover "a quiet stream underneath the fluctuating affirmations and rejections of my little world." Nouwen participated fully in the daily life of the Abbey of the Genesee in upstate New York -- in work and in prayer. From the early weeks in the abbey -- dominated by conflicting desires and concerns -- to the final days of Advent, when he finds a new sense of calm expectation, Nouwen never loses his critical honesty. Insightful, compassionate, often humorous, always realistic, The Genesee Diary is both an inspiration and a challenge to those who are in search of themselves.

"The Genesee Diary beautifully lifts the heart and mind to God."
--Christianity Today

"This is an extraordinary account of a man seeking inner peace and total commitment to God... a fine portrait of cloistered life, a beautifully written account of one man's soul-searching."
--Publisher's Weekly

About this title

Review

The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery is Henri Nouwen's journal of his seven-month stay in the Abbey of the Genesee in upstate New York. His reflections on daily life with the Trappists are funny, wise, and often profound--resembling Kathleen Norris's The Cloister Walk, but a bit less thematically structured and more down to earth. Nouwen's goal is simply to record what it's like to pass the time in a cloistered community. He spends part of his stay there reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which helps awaken a hunger for a richer experience of life that he subsequently satisfies by learning to slow down. In his first week at the monastery, Nouwen writes, "I have so many ideas I want to write about, so many books I want to read, so many skills I want to learn--motorcycle maintenance is now one of them--and so many things I want to say to others now or later, that I do not SEE that God is all around me and that I am always trying to see what is ahead, overlooking him who is so close." Then, looking forward to being planted in one place among the Trappists, he writes, "Maybe I need to get stuck," to learn to see God. He does, and he does. --Michael Joseph Gross

From the Publisher

Recorded during a seven-month stay in a Trappist monastery in Genesee, New York, Henri Nouwen's record of his spiritual journey is an insightful and compassionate inspiration to all who seek to know themselves better.

Edition details

• Publisher: Non Basic Stock Line
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0232521433
• ISBN 13: 9780232521436
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 138