With Open Hands (Book Review)

With Open Hands, Henri Nouwen, New York: Ballantine Books, 1985, pp. 87.

This book is a group effort of 25 theology students who helped Nouwen formulate his initial ideas. Lived experiences forms the background of the book and the insights emerge from such experiences and flow back into them. The book has 5 chapters consisting of experiences constituting a movement from ‘clenched fists’ to ‘open hands’.

Prayer is not easy as anyone who prays will testify. It is a relationship wherein we allow the other to enter the deepest recesses of our being and this is very sensitive and sometimes even painful. The clenched fist imagery represents a resistance to the kind of relationship that prayer demands.  Surrendering ourselves to God in prayer is vital to unclench our fists but this cannot be fully achieved as behind every fist lies another one. Nonetheless, surrender brings with it a kind of freedom. Prayer takes on a whole new and significant meaning.

Prayer is connected to silence. It’s not only that we need silence to pray but that the silence itself sometimes becomes prayer. Silence is not always connected to peace. Sometimes silence can be frightening especially when we are anxious of what may be revealed in silence.

Prayer teaches us the importance of acceptance. We need to accept God who wants to give himself to us and to feel accepted by Him. The world displays to us the folly of acceptance. It preaches individualism and prudence. Prayer implies a certain amount of folly. We must be willing to stake it all on the Lord, knowing well that He will never let us down. This is one of the challenges of prayer.

Every prayer is an expression of hope. If you expect nothing from the future, you cannot pray. Without hope there can be no life. A prayer of little faith is carefully reckoned, stingy and upset by every risk. It is not permeated by hope. Praying with hope means not getting entangled with selfish wishes and gifts but with the giver.

A prayer of hope is a prayer that disarms you and extends you far beyond the limits of your own longings. Therefore, prayer leads us to others. It is never a closed compartment wherein the individual builds a wall around himself and his God. Prayer cannot be disconnected from life and our life is social. Hence, the best manifestation of prayer is compassion. Compassion must not be confused with pity. It is in the first place, a revelation of our neighbour as a human being like ourselves. Secondly, compassion means acknowledging our mutual destiny in God.

Very interestingly, in the final chapter, Nouwen makes a connection between prayer and revolution. Revolution is not understood in the violent sense, but as conversion or change. As we delve into the depths of prayer, we constantly undergo change and conversion. This happens at the personal level but must also translate into the relational level. Prayer must open our eyes to the problems and sufferings of people in society. Christian witness is a revolutionary witness.

The book is small but very insightful. The chapters are not written in the usual style but as short reflections ranging from a few lines to a page. This fosters reading and reflection. Christians struggling to pray and those comfortable with prayer alike will find this book helpful to steer them as they progress to pray with open hands.