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Welcome to the Blog Blitz for Turn My Mourning Into Dancing by Henri Nouwen, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!
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(1) winner will receive two print copies of Turn My Mourning into Dancing (one to keep, one to give!)!
Full tour schedule linked below. Giveaway began at midnight April 26, 2022 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on May 3, 2022. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.
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Excerpts from the book
If you’ve ever gone through a time of mourning or suffering, you know that one of the things you long for is for it to be over. Henri Nouwen speaks words that those facing challenging times can take and, I hope, be encouraged. Here are two excerpts so you can explore the riches in this book.
Excerpt 1
“Joining in the Larger Dance“
Mourning makes us poor; it powerfully reminds us of our smallness. But it is precisely here, in that pain
or poverty or awkwardness, that the Dancer invites us to rise up and take the first steps. For in our
suffering, not apart from it, Jesus enters our sadness, takes us by the hand, pulls us gently up to stand,
and invites us to dance. We find the way to pray, as the psalmist did, “You have turned my mourning
into dancing” (Ps. 30:11), because at the center of our grief we find the grace of God.
And as we dance, we realize that we don’t have to stay on the little spot of our grief but can step beyond
it. We stop centering our lives on ourselves. We pull others along with us and invite them into the larger
dance. We learn to make room for others— and the Gracious Other in our midst. And when we become
present to God and God’s people, we find our lives richer. We come to know that all the world is our
dance floor. Our step grows lighter because God has called out others to dance as well.
A friend wrote me a letter to recount his discovery. He had decided to spend the week following
Christmas with his father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. One morning, when he met his father
at the day program in which he takes part, he found him very anxious and agitated. His father was
worrying that his own mother, who had died long before my friend was born, needed his help. The
worries were clearly an expression of a deep anguish that he could not express directly.
My friend took his father for a drive for more than an hour through the countryside. Very few words
were spoken between them, but my friend noticed how his father’s anxiety diminished, and he became
more relaxed. After not speaking for nearly an hour, the father turned, looked directly at his son, and
said, “Well, we haven’t had such a good visit in a long time.” The son laughed and realized that his father
was right. Anguish had become peace; loss had become gain. Even the silence between them held
healing. So much of our movement through suffering has to do with such unexpected moments.
Moments that come as gifts amid our waiting or struggling. Moments that often have much to do with
the people God puts in our path.
We do not, then, attempt our movement from our little lives into God’s larger grace by simple resolve or
lonely effort. When our needs lead us to grab desperately for a place, when our unhealed wounds
determine the atmosphere around us, we become anxious. But then we let our hurt remind us of our
need for healing. As we dance and walk forward, grace provides the ground on which our steps fall.
Prayer puts us in touch with the God of the Dance. We look beyond our experience of sadness or loss by
learning to receive an all-embracing love, a love that meets us in everyday moments.
Taken from “Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope During Hard Times” by Henri Nouwen.
Copyright 2001 Estate of Henri Nouwen. Preface Copyright 2001 Timothy Jones. Used with permission
from Thomas Nelson Publishing. http://www.thomasnelson.com
Excerpt 2
From Holding Tight to Letting Go
For years I have loved watching trapeze artists. The love began when my then- eighty- nine- year- old
father came for a visit. Let’s go to the circus, we decided one day. That evening we watched five South
African trapeze artists—three fliers and two catchers. They danced in the air! The fliers soared and all
was dangerous until they found themselves caught by the strong hands of their partners. I told my
father that I had always wanted to fly like that, that perhaps I had missed my calling!
I am constantly moved by the courage of my circus friends. At each performance they trust that their
flight will end with their hands sliding into the secure grip of a partner. They also know that only the
release of the secure bar allows them to move on with arcing grace to the next. Before they can be
caught, they must let go. They must brave the emptiness of space.
Living with this kind of willingness to let go is one of the greatest challenges we face. Whether it
concerns a person, possession, or personal reputation, in so many areas we hold on at all costs. We
become heroic defenders of our dearly gained happiness. We treat our sometimes inevitable losses as
failures in the battle of survival.
The great paradox is that it is in letting go, we receive. We find safety in unexpected places of risk. And
those who try to avoid all risk, those who would try to guarantee that their hearts will not be broken,
end up in a self- created hell. C. S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves,
To love at all is to be vulnerable…If you want to make sure of keeping [your heart] intact, you must give
your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries;
avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket— safe, dark,
motionless, airless— it will change. It will not be broken—it will become unbreak-able, impenetrable,
irredeemable…The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the danger of love
is Hell.
In so many ways, the more we insist on control and the more we resist the call to hold our lives lightly,
the more we have to deny the reality of our losses and the more artificial our existence becomes. Our
belief that we should grasp tightly what we need provides one of the great sources of our suffering. But
letting go of possessions and plans and people allows us to enter, for all its risks, a life of new,
unexpected freedom.
How can we live with greater willingness to let go? Another step in turning our mourning into dancing
has to do with not clutching what we have, not trying to reserve a safe place we can rest in, not trying to
choreograph our own or others’ lives, but to surrender to the God whom we love and want to follow.
God invites us to experience our not being in control as an invitation to faith.
Taken from “Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope During Hard Times” by Henri Nouwen.
Copyright 2001 Estate of Henri Nouwen. Preface Copyright 2001 Timothy Jones. Used with permission
from Thomas Nelson Publishing. http://www.thomasnelson.com
Don’t miss the opportunity to win two copies of this book! Just scroll back up to the giveaway image and follow the directions below it. Giveaway closes May 3, 2022. Best wishes!
Enjoy! –Wren
Disclaimer: I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from the author. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.
finchnwren 