National Network for Equitable Library Service

During the last five years of his life, spiritual author Henri J. M. Nouwen became close to The Flying Rodleighs, a trapeze troupe in a traveling circus. Like Nouwen's own life, a trapeze act is full of artistry, exhilarating successes, crushing failures and continual forgiveness. He wrote about his experience in a genre new to him: creative non-fiction. Nouwen's colleague and friend Carolyn Whitney-Brown presents his unpublished trapeze writings framed by the true story of his rescue through a hotel window by paramedics during his first heart attack.