Before Christmas, a friend and reader sent us a copy of the latest posthumous book from Henri Nouwen, Flying, Falling, Catching: An Unlikely Story of Finding Freedom.

Who would have thought a priest and professor could learn so much from circus performers?

“The most dangerous thing I can do is to try to catch the catcher.”

That is the line that stays with me, and calls me to reflection, after reading Flying, Falling, Catching, an account of the unlikely friendship between the late Henri Nouwen – priest, professor, world-famous author – and the “Flying Rodleighs” – a group of trapeze artists with a traveling circus.

Rodleigh Stevens was leader of the trapeze troupe and one of its “flyers,” those who make the daring leaps and spins high above the ground before being caught by one of the “catchers” in the troupe. “The most dangerous thing I can do,” he told Nouwen, “is to try to catch the catcher.” If they both were reaching for the other in mid-air, he explained, they were almost certain to miss, with a painful fall as the result. “I simply have to stretch out my arms and trust the catcher to catch me.”

His comment provides a powerful metaphor for the spiritual life, one that Nouwen grasped, and one that intrigues me. How much of our piety, our religiosity, is an attempt to “catch the catcher,” to grasp God through our own efforts? And is not what Rodleigh says a powerful image of faith? “I simply have to stretch out my arms and trust the catcher to catch me.”

(Image courtesy of Canva)

Although I have not read all of Flying, Falling, Catching: An Unlikely Story of Finding Freedom, I repeatedly heard Bill's comments about high points of Henri Nouwen’s relationship with the high- flying Rodleighs. Highpoints is not merely a metaphor. It is a way to rise above the banal self and be free.

In Nouwen’s case, perhaps, it was a way to be freed of his anguish of soul. Upon publication of Genius Born of Anguish: the Life and Legacy of Henri Nouwen, (2012), we attended a lecture by the brilliant biographer Michael W. Higgins, who sketched the role of anguish throughout Nouwen’s life. It is said that Nouwen understood the ineradicable craving for true union that animates all humankind.

Some people recognize this craving in themselves and take intentional steps to be free of bonds, walls, and wounds that block spiritual and psychological freedom. Some want to be freed of their anguish and some intentionally seek the Divine; they seek a spiritual freedom. In Spiritual Freedom, Jesuit John J. English defines spiritual freedom as: “a kind of realized, existential freedom, freedom with oneself and freedom within oneself. It is what might be called ultimate freedom, the freedom that accompanies the deep awareness of the ultimate meaning of one’s life.” *

Jesus said, "I have come to set you free.” In Scripture we learn that Jesus frees many of their maladies. To name a few: He drives out an evil spirit from a man in Capernaum, cleanses a man with leprosy, raises Jairus' daughter back to life, heals a man who was unable to speak, and raises Lazarus from the dead in Bethany.

If only we knew, for sure, how the man from Capernaum and Jarius’ daughter felt after being freed. We can read Henri Nouwen’s experience of freedom after watching the high- flyers’ performance: “I saw something that opened in me a new inner place… Then I experienced a personal transformation.” (193) “Deep in myself I feel that something new wants to be born.” (197) “The Flying Rodleighs express some of the deepest human desires. The desire to fly freely, and the desire to be safely caught.” (202)

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Thank you, Barb Fuhrwerk, friend and faithful Reflections reader, for sending us a copy of this book, authored by your friend. Your gracious generosity made our lives a lot better by reading Flying, Falling, Catching.

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