Once upon a time when I was in high school, back in the dark ages, I had a friend and mentor who was a big fan of the work of Swiss physician and counselor Paul Tournier. Tournier, who lived and wrote during the 1960’s and 70’s, was a Christian author who advocated for what he called “medicine of the person”, treatment of the whole person, mind, body, and spirit or soul. His most famous and influential book was The Meaning of Persons, published in 1954.
I had not visited with Dr. Tournier since those high school days, but I remembered him as wise Christian counselor, even if his work was a bit over my head at the time I was introduced to it. So, when I saw The Adventure of Living on the used books sale shelf at my local library, I decided to give it a try. It was an especially appropriate read for me now since my word for the year is “venture” or “adventure.” I’ve been trying to live my days as adventures and to venture out beyond my self-imposed limits this year.
I found The Adventure of Living to be helpful and inspiring in my adventurous year. Modern author and psychologist Jordan Peterson has a lot to say about adventure and our need for adventure in our lives, and Tournier reminds me of Peterson at times, except that Tournier is more Christian and a little less esoteric than Jordan can be. In the first chapter of the book, called “An Instinct Peculiar to Man,” Tournier writes, “I should like to depict as I see it the great impulse toward adventure which is peculiar to man . . . ” and later, “Woe betide those, who no longer feel thrilled at anything, who have stopped looking for adventure.”
He goes on to write about what adventures actually are, how they begin, and how they die, creating the need for a new adventure. And using examples from his own counseling and pastoral care practice, Tournier illustrates the risks of taking the adventures that life places before us, the choices we make about how to react to both success and failure, when to follow a new adventure, and how to know which adventure to choose. He writes with wisdom and balance about prayer and meditation and how to experience and know God’s guidance in our small adventures and in the Big Adventure of Life itself.
I suppose The Adventure of Living could be classified as a “self help” or “Christian living” book, but I think it delves deeper than most such books tend to go. It was written before the advent of the 21st century tendency that we have to label and medicate every problem, spiritual or mental. And the advice and exposition of the subject come from a European Christian perspective, but the book speaks to anyone with a Western cultural background, even secular nonbelievers and those of a different religion. I don’t tend to enjoy the self-help or Christian living genres, but I did find this sixty year old book to be absorbing and useful. Mr. Tournier still has a lot to say to our somewhat jaded and over-psychologized age.
I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes that I copied into my commonplace journal just for a sample and a bit of adventurous inspiration:
“What matters is to listen to Him, to let ourselves be guided, to face up to the adventure to which He calls us, with all its risks. Life is an adventure, directed by God.”
“[T]he excitement of adventure rescues us from the sea of introspection that drowns many of those who hesitate. The more they examine themselves the less they act. The less they act, the less clearly do they see what to do. In vain do they interrogate even God on what they ought to do; rarely do they receive any reply. God guides us when we are on the way, not when we are standing still, just as one cannot steer a car unless it is moving.”
