1) Create space for to hear "the still, small, voice." Develop spiritual disciplines like prayer, solitude, and silence that make time with God a priority. Put it in your agenda if you have to!
2) Shift your center of gravity from the head to the heart. Develop your sensitivity to the language of your heart. It is more quiet, more gentle, more subtle -- take time to listen.
3) Die to Self. This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of Henri's spirituality to explain. However, for Henri, the purpose of the spiritual life is not to have a cozy, self-indulgent way of being. No, the spiritual life is to attune us to the suffering of the world and with love in our hearts attend to it. It is a spirituality of relationship. Friendship and faithfulness are major themes in Henri's letters. He offers much help here on how to be a good friend -- to yourself, to others, and to our world. Find a community. Be together. Be present.
4) Don't run from your pain; enter into it. There are great gifts in weakness, but one must be prepared to look at them to find "pearl of great price." Henri's spirituality is one of downward mobility. In this upside-down world, we come to understand that the belonging and communion we all long for comes from being the same not from being the best. It is a fellowship of the weak. Again it is about a shift in perspective: it is not about forgoing success, but of knowing deep in ourselves that we are not what we achieve. We are the Beloved of God.
In your Preface, you mention Henri's urging that we "move from the house of fear to the house of love." What practices does he describe in his correspondence that might help the reader do that?
We have already talked about the practice of gratitude -- this is certainly one way we can move from fear to love. Henri would also suggest the practice of celebration. He suggests to us that it is important to celebrate the moments in our lives that bring joy. In a letter to a social justice activist he wrote about being surprised by joy: "I continue to be impressed by so much goodness that exists between so much darkness and so much evil and in this sense I am constantly surprised by joy" (May 17, 1994). Again, Henri is seeing with the eyes of faith. His antenna are tuned to joy! He is not overcome by darkness because he can see the goodness in the midst of it. This is living in the house of love. Another favorite of mine is Henri's suggestion to be useless. He wrote to two workers in a soup kitchen: "Sometimes we have to dare to be fools for Christ. That means that sometimes we have to be willing to give food to people who don't really need or deserve it. And sometimes we have to be willing to work with some people who might even exploit us. Maybe that is as close as we can come to an experience of self-emptying. It is the experience of being useless in the presence of the Lord" (August 31, 1981). He is of course not saying we should be impractical or do things that are counter-productive, but he is suggesting that being Christian is less about being useful than it is about being loving.
What moved you the most about these letters?
I was most moved by Henri's faithfulness. It is not necessarily a popular concept these days. However, I was inspired by his integrity to stay faithful to choices made. I think it is this quality that makes him such a reliable guide for my own life. He shows the way to a mature faith and a mature life. Here's something he wrote that stirs me: "… I even think that at times we have to dare to let go of the God of our youth in order to find a more silent and maybe even a more hidden, God. I am not sure if this is what will happen to you but I do trust that faithfulness to a true spiritual way of living will lead you to the place where you will know your deepest vocation in life" (April 25, 1989).
Henri struggled his entire life with debilitating loneliness and anxiety, yet he remained faithful to his central vocation: to know God's love and share it with others. As his letters show, he shared his experiences with vulnerability. His courage and strength is moving -- and inspiring.
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