Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.
HENRI NOUWENGod, 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.
More Henri Nouwen Quotes
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Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
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Our life is a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment.
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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.
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The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.
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Your heart is greater than your wounds.
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The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
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Forgiveness changes the way we remember.
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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.
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Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.
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Keep a space where God can let something totally new take place.
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Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.
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The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing that is a friend who cares.
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You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
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What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
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Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God’s eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God’s heart.
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