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Advent & Christmas Wisdom from Henri J.M. Nouwen #AdventBookClub

So, on ‘The Big Read‘, I essentially run an online book club with a housegroup affiliated, but enjoying the thought that I can join with @pamjweb and a few others this advent in reading Advent and Christmas Wisdom from Henri J.M. Nouwen.

The internationally renowned priest and author, respected professor and beloved pastor Henri Nouwen (pronounced Henry Now-win) wrote over 40 books on the spiritual life.

As Merton before him, Henri always stressed the relational. He writes very directly about our contemporary longings for meaning, belonging, and intimacy and, at the same time, integrates this with a powerful vision of service and social justice. Fr. Nouwen often used the three core themes of solitude, community, and compassion to help people enter into a fresh vision of the spiritual life.

Nouwen believed that what is most personal is most universal; he wrote, “By giving words to these intimate experiences I can make my life available to others.”

Read more at the Henri Nouwen Society, from a man who was a synthesist, valued community, and encouraged each to look for his personal journey … and also had his own battle(s?) with depression.

Advent begins the Christmas cycle of the liturgical year – running from the Sunday 4 weeks before December 25 and “are often thought to symbolise the four different ways that Christ comes into the world:

  1. at his birth as a helpless infant in Bethlehem
  2. at his arrival in the hearts of believers
  3. at his death
  4. at his arrival on Judgement Day.

By admin

Dr Bex Lewis is passionate about helping people engage with the digital world in a positive way, where she has more than 20 years’ experience. She is Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University and Visiting Research Fellow at St John’s College, Durham University, with a particular interest in digital culture, persuasion and attitudinal change, especially how this affects the third sector, including faith organisations, and, after her breast cancer diagnosis in 2017, has started to research social media and cancer. Trained as a mass communications historian, she has written the original history of the poster Keep Calm and Carry On: The Truth Behind the Poster (Imperial War Museum, 2017), drawing upon her PhD research. She is Director of social media consultancy Digital Fingerprint, and author of Raising Children in a Digital Age: Enjoying the Best, Avoiding the Worst  (Lion Hudson, 2014; second edition in process) as well as a number of book chapters, and regularly judges digital awards. She has a strong media presence, with her expertise featured in a wide range of publications and programmes, including national, international and specialist TV, radio and press, and can be found all over social media, typically as @drbexl.

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