This twentieth anniversary edition (over 111,000 copies sold) brings Henri J. M. Nouwen's writings on Eastern Orthodox icons to a new generation of readers and adds to the repackaged Nouwen collection published by Ave Maria Press. With a new foreword by Br. Robert Lentz, a well-known painter of contemporary icons, this classic Nouwen book invites readers to pray with four Russian icons with their eyes open by emphasizing seeing or gazing, which are at the heart of Eastern spirituality. In Nouwen's view, icons are not decorations, but holy places. The book includes four full-color icons, which can be removed for private contemplation or meditation.