I came across the blog of a pastor in Canada; he commented on a post at Reformed Chicks Blabbing.

And while there isn't much on his blog that interests me, eh, in his sidebar he lists Henri Nouwen as among those who have influenced him.

The mere mention of Nouwen's name reminded me of how I became aware of him a few years ago. And I don't read many spiritual books. I can probably count on one hand the number of spiritual books that I've ... 'though I re-read my favorites constantly.

But, I've said before (at the end of the post) how my parents rarely took us anywhere except the state park at Hamlin on Lake Ontario. We never went to Niagara Falls or Letchworth Park and to the Finger Lakes only once. It wasn't until high school that I went to Canada ... when I became friends of teens who could drive.

And, so, of course, we never went down to visit the Abbey of the Genesee, the Trappist monastery where Nouwen spent a few months and chronicled his time in The Genesee Diary, 'though the place was only 30 miles away. Maybe living in NJ has altered my perception on driving distances. 30 miles is nothing.

In any event, for whatever reason, the Jesuit who ran the Newman Center on campus during my time there, Fr. John Zeitler, took a bunch of us down there one time. It was the first time that I had ever seen a church with smaller altars along both walls of the nave. I just remember the peace of the place. It was palpable.