The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life

In The Selfless Way of Christ, Henri Nouwen explores selflessness, vocation, and how downward mobility is a key to the spiritual path. Downward mobility, says Nouwen, is the way of Christ, and we are constantly tempted away from it by the lures of success, of power, of being needed and important. Originally serialised in the magazine Sojourners, Nouwen wrote the articles that comprise this book during his years as a professor at Yale Divinity School. There he enjoyed academic success and found fame as a spiritual writer, but was struggling to find his true vocation. Here he seeks to explain for himself and his readers how choosing the downwardly mobile path can, conversely, be the means of growth and new life in Christ.