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Henri Nouwen Quotes - Page 4

All Quotes Abundance Age Art Being Human Boundaries Brokenness Challenges Children Choices Christ Church Community Compassion Darkness Desire Discipline Effort Evil Expectations Feelings Focus Friendship Giving Glory Grace Gratitude Grief Grieving Growth Hatred Healing Heart Home Hospitality Humanity Hurt Identity Inspirational Intimacy Jesus Journey Joy Kissing Letting Go Life Listening Loneliness Love Lying Memories Opportunity Pain Past Poverty Prayer Property Quality Reading Reality Rejection Running Safety Silence Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Struggle Suffering Teaching Temptation Tragedy Transformation Unity Vocation Waiting War Weakness Writing

God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.

God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.

Compassion, Giving, Water

Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.

Distance, Compassion, Judgement

Life is precious. Not because it is unchangeable, like a diamond, but because it is vulnerable, like a little bird. To love life means to love its vulnerability, asking for care, attention, guidance, and support. Life and death are connected by vulnerability. The newborn child and the dying elder both remind us of the preciousness of our lives. Let's not forget the preciousness and vulnerability of life during the times we are powerful, successful, and popular.

Powerful, Children, Mean

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.3, Harper Collins

The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go.

Art, Dark, Light

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.8, Harper Collins

We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.

Rain, Fall, Soil

I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.

Block, Knowledge Of God, Wonder

Henri J. M. Nouwen (1981). “A cry for mercy: prayers from the Genesee”, Doubleday Books

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.

Happiness, Opportunity, True Joy

God doesn't give us just enough. God gives us more than enough: more bread and fish than we can eat, more love than we dared to ask for.

Giving, Bread, Enough

Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently than the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it. What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice.

Running, Depressing, Two

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.30, Harper Collins

One of the remarkable qualities of the story is that it creates space. We can dwell in a story, walk around, find our own place. The story confronts but does not oppress; the story inspires but does not manipulate. The story invites us to an encounter, a dialogue, a mutual sharing. As long as we have stories to tell to each other there is hope. As long as we can remind each other of the lives of men and women in whom the love of God becomes manifest, there is reason to move forward to new land in which new stories are hidden.

Moving, Men, Land

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint.

Gratitude, Hurt, Grateful

Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming”, p.85, Image

Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world.

Spiritual, Joy, Darkness

Henri J.M. Nouwen (2017). “You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Convergent Books

Life is a gift, not to possess, but to share.

Joy, Life Is, Life Is A Gift

While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will soon go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart... Joy in this perspective is the fruit of hope.

Heart, Optimism, Perspective

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2005). “The Dance of Life: Weaving Sorrows and Blessings Into One Joyful Step”

We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.

Angel, Giving, Joy

Distance never seperates two hearts that really care, for our memories span the miles and in seconds we are there. But whenever I start feeling sad cuz I miss you I remind myself how lucky I am to have someone so special to miss.

Relationship, I Miss You, Missing You

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.

Spiritual, Loneliness, Garden

Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.

Mean, People, Community

Source: archives.wineskins.org

The spiritual life is a life beyond moods. It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of happiness or depression.

Spiritual, Joy, Feelings

Henri J.M. Nouwen (2017). “You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Convergent Books

Forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. Forgiveness indeed heals memories . . .

Memories, Blessing, Way

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.29, Harper Collins

A prayerful life is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.

Prayer, Purpose, Done

Henri J.M. Nouwen (2017). “You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, p.23, Convergent Books

People who have known the joy of God point each other to flashes of light here and there, and remind each other that they reveal the hidden but real Presence of God. They discover that there are people who heal each other's wounds, forgive each other's offenses, share their possessions, foster the spirit of community, celebrate the gifts they have received, and live in constant anticipation of the full manifestation of God's Glory.

Real, Light, People

A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.

Ocean, Struggle, Self

Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming”, p.42, Image

Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

Mean, Compassion, Vulnerable

Donald P. McNeill, Douglas A. Morrison, Henri J. M. Nouwen (1982). “Compassion, a reflection on the Christian life”, Doubleday Books

Somehow, somewhere, I know that God loves me, even though I do not feel that love as I can feel a human embrace, even though I do not hear a voice as I hear human words...God is greater than my senses, greater than my thoughts, greater than my heart. I do believe that He touches me in places that are unknown even to myself.

Believe, Heart, Voice

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