In the year before his unexpected death in 1996, Henri Nouwen set out to write a book about the Creed. His plans changed when he learned of the death of his friend Adam Arnett, a profoundly handicapped young man from the L’Arche Daybreak Community where Nouwen lived. Adam could not speak or even move without assistance. Gripped by frequent seizures, he spent his life in obscurity. And yet, for Nouwen, Adam became “my friend, my teacher, and my guide.” It was Adam who led Nouwen to a new understanding of his faith and what it means to be Beloved of God. Through the story of Adam, Nouwen found a new way to tell God’s story of Jesus and the story of all of us human creatures, broken and yet beloved, who live in a world charged with the mystery of God’s love. In an afterword to this edition, Robert Ellsberg, Nouwen’s editor, writes: “In rereading Adam, I am struck by how much it represents not only the final distillation of Henri’s fundamental message, but also a key to interpreting everything that went before.” In the story of Adam, Nouwen found a new way of expressing his Creed, and offered it in the hope “that many others, through Adam’s story will be enabled to recognize God’s story among us and so be empowered to say in a new way, ‘I believe.’”
