I found myself setting the book down every few pages, simply so I could ponder, slowing my mind to Nouwen’s prose, appreciating fully his many-layered ideas. His ability to dissect every stroke of the painting and story and pull out vision despite the sea of details, exposes his meditative spirit and spurs the reader into a meditative spirit him or herself.

What makes The Return of the Prodigal Son so deep and good is Nouwen’s unhurried transparent observations as he relates to the younger son, older son, and finally-almost unwillinging-the father. What resulted, is this short but saturated story filled with Nouwen’s personal reflections, meditations, and honest–often intimate–insights into his own spiritual transformation as he sought to understand Jesus’ most famous parable through the paintbrush strokes of a 17 th century Dutch painter. His pilgrimage turned literal when he traveled to Russia and beheld the original-several days in a row for hours at a time. That experience set in motion a sort of pilgrimage within Nouwen, in which he spent the next many years reading and researching all he could on Rembrandt’s life, the biblical story of the Prodigal Son, and then weaving these many threads together as he meditated and prayed, until he had created a story tapestry meant for his personal spiritual journey.

Instantly he was swept into the warmth and safety it portrayed he says his “heart leapt” when he saw it, longing for the same sense of belonging-a place in which he, too, could come home. His first encounter was with a poster, hanging on a colleague’s office wall. The entire book spring boards from a seemingly random encounter Nouwen had with Rembrandt’s famous painting, Return of the Prodigal Son. Nouwen and I shared our pilgrim journeys in the early morning hours together with hot coffee in hand-mine with cream, his with a bit of sugar-sitting across from one another as dawn broke through my kitchen windows, but before any of the day’s commotion stirred. What I discovered was a man whose thoughtful prose had me sitting at my kitchen table in deep discussion with him, figuratively speaking, of course. It is a slim volume and since I didn’t know what to expect literarily (does his work read like a Lewis? Or a Foster? –both excellent writers, but requiring different concentration levels for digestion), I was thrilled to see I could introduce myself to his work in tidbit size rather than multi-volume load. The Return of the Prodigal Son was my first Nouwen read.

Maybe someday I’ll reach the comfort and expertise level of “reviewer.” But for now… I prefer “wonderings” or “considerations”. To call it a “review” seems so formal and responsibility-laden. As promised, I am offering my first book review for 2014.

The prodigal son henri nouwen pdf