Do yourself a favour and order this book—then come back to finish reading my review. This book is that good.

Here and Now is a collection of Henri Nouwen’s reflections on life. Each reflection is about two pages long and they’re grouped together under larger categories like “Joy,” “Prayer,” and “Suffering.”

Any book of reflections is only as insightful as the life of the author. This is why Here and Now is so profound. Nouwen, a priest, became a professor who taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard. He devoted much of his life to the poor and lived the remainder of his life serving people with mental disabilities in L’Arche Daybreak in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

With Nouwen, there’s no pretense. What you read is the fruit of honest reflection on life. He lived what he wrote in “Who We Are”:

We, therefore, need discipline to keep living truthfully and not succumb to the endless seductions of our society. (136)

Nouwen lived a disciplined truthful life apart from the seductions of society—and it shows. Here and Now will help you to see your own life-with-God in a new light.

Nouwen, Henri. Here and Now: Living in the Spirit. Crossroad, 1994.