At the heart of Henri Nouwen's theology is the idea that the spiritual life is a process of transforming negatives into positives, of living between two polarities, of learning to embrace darkness and light at the same time. In this new anthology of Nouwen's writings, Michael Ford traces Nouwen's understanding of the human emotions following the course of his literary career. From his earliest works as a young psychology lecturer, his famous paperbacks which emerged during his days as a professor at Yale and Harvard to his remarkable output before and after his breakdown at l'Arche, Ford makes selections which not only chart the writer's intense fascination with his own psycho-spiritual development but, at the same time, enable us to make connections with our own emotional struggles, helping us to make positives out of our own negatives.