Week 1: Prologue — A Painting That Would Not Let Go

1.Nouwen first encountered the painting as a poster pinned to a friend's door. He describes being unable to move on — something in the image held him. What was it, in his telling, that the painting seemed to be saying to him at that particular moment in his life?

2.Has a piece of art, music, a story, or a landscape ever arrested you in a similar way — seeming to know something about you that you hadn't yet articulated? What was the experience like?

3.Nouwen describes his life at the time as marked by restlessness, a relentless search for affirmation, and a sense that he was always arriving somewhere but never quite home. Do you recognize that portrait? In what ways?

4.Rembrandt painted The Return of the Prodigal Son late in his life, after enduring bankruptcy, the deaths of those he loved, and his own moral failures. Nouwen argues that this personal suffering gave Rembrandt a depth of insight into the parable that a younger, more comfortable painter could not have had.

5.Before reading Nouwen's interpretation, read Luke 15:11–32 again slowly. Which character do you find yourself most drawn to — or most uncomfortable with — on this reading? Why?

6.Nouwen will argue that the parable is not simply about a lost son returning, but about the nature of the Father's love and our call to embody it. Does that feel like a natural reading of the parable to you, or does it surprise you? What do you typically take to be the parable's central point?

7.Nouwen was a Catholic priest, a Harvard professor, and a bestselling author when he wrote this book — and yet he describes himself as profoundly lost. How does his willingness to admit this shape your trust in him as a guide through this material?