38. "The Way of the Heart" by Henri J.M. Nouwen

Henri J.M. Nouwen was a Roman Catholic priest who gave up a teaching career at Yale to work with mentally disabled adults in the final years of his life. He also struggled with severe depression, and his writings about that are powerful, poignant, and brilliantly incisive.

The Way of the Heart is one of his earlier works, written before he left Yale and before he suffered a major depressive breakdown. It's still full of wisdom, however. I found his insights about silence particularly relevant and well-advised in the wake of last weekend's violence and the venomous rhetoric that has surrounded political discourse both before and since that event. I'm resolving to think more carefully before I speak (and write) in anger, to question whether what I have to say will serve any good purpose.

Also poignant, at least for me, are his comments about solitude. He differentiates between the aloneness of isolation and the aloneness that is filled with God's presence--just as silence need not be emptiness but rather can be full of contemplation, reflection, and communion.