Availability: The Challenge and the Gift of Being Present

by Robert J. Wicks

Overview

For almost thirty years, Availability has been a trusted guide for cultivating openness and being present to God, self, and others. In this new edition, Robert Wicks describes availability as a challenging but spiritually rewarding way to live a more balanced life.

Drawing insights from his spiritual mentors Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton, Wicks shows how freely entering into the turmoil and joy of other people's lives can lead to deeper self-knowledge and a powerful encounter with Christ.

In this simple, accessible book written in his characteristic warm and direct style, Wicks shows how self-awareness, compassion for others, and prayer are but different turns on the same road of finding and living the Truth. Wicks looks at the three dimensions of spirituality through the lens of availability. Looking first at self-awareness, he offers brief chapters on forgiveness, clarity, and the uniqueness of each person. In part two, he examines availability to others as a twofold challenge: negotiating the difficulties inherent in relationships and entering into others' pain. In part three, Wicks explores availability to God, focusing on letting go and experiencing him.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933495927
Publisher:	Ave Maria Press
Publication date:	11/20/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	660 KB

About the Author

Psychologist and popular speaker Robert J. Wicks is the author of more than sixty books for individuals and professionals, including the bestselling Riding the Dragon.

He speaks internationally about resilience, self-care, and the prevention of secondary stress to audiences from the US Congress to Walter Reed Army Hospital, from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to Harvard Children’s Hospital, and from the Princeton Theological Seminary to the NATO Intelligence Fusion Center in England. Some of Wicks’s presentations include speaking at the commemoration of the Boston Marathon Bombing at the Boston Public Library; a keynote for the American Medical Directors Association; a course in Beirut, Lebanon, for relief workers from Aleppo, Syria; and the psychological debriefing of relief workers evacuated from Rwanda during the genocide in 1994. He also regularly speaks at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress.

Wicks serves as a professor emeritus at Loyola University Maryland, and has taught in universities and professional schools of psychology, medicine, nursing, theology, education, and social work. He earned a doctorate in psychology from Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital and has received honorary degrees from Georgian Court, Caldwell, and Marywood universities.

In 1996, Pope John Paul II awarded Wicks a papal medal for his service to the Catholic Church. He also received the first Alumni Award for Excellence in Professional Psychology from Widener University and the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the American Counseling Association’s Division on Spirituality, Ethics and Religious Values in Counseling.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

I Being Available to … Ourselves

Introduction 3

1 Uniqueness 5

2 Failure and Forgiveness 13

3 Self-Awareness 23

4 Clarity 31

II Being Available to … others

Introduction 53

5 Relationships 57

6 Their Pain, Our Fears 73

III Being Available to … God

Introduction 89

7 Idols, Anxieties, and Letting Go in the Dark 93

8 Experiencing the Lord 107

In the Presence of God: An Epilogue 123

Notes 131

Annotated Bibliography on Prayer, Prayerfulness, and the Spiritual Life 137