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Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.

Henri Nouwen

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

God Knowledge Myself Wonder
Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
HENRI NOUWEN

Human Learning Morning Patience Wait
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Alone Compassionate Courage God Help People See Sight
You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer – listening to the voice of the one who calls you “the beloved.”
HENRI NOUWEN

Call Listening Prayer Voice Yourself
The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table.
HENRI NOUWEN

Community Force Hungry Institution Ourselves Rule
We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.
HENRI NOUWEN

Accomplishment Admission Ourselves Production Success Vulnerable Weakness
Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
HENRI NOUWEN

Day Hope Ourselves Sun Talk True Walk
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Beautiful Flower Joy Ourselves Pain Power Water
The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.
HENRI NOUWEN

Healing Hide Question Service Wound
Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.
HENRI NOUWEN

Compassionate Distinct Judgement Prevent Togetherness
Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.
HENRI NOUWEN

Dare Form Invitation Listening Silence Spiritual Stranger Yourself
In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
HENRI NOUWEN

Life Ourselves Source Wound
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Compassionate Human Power Weakness
One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.
HENRI NOUWEN

Forget Life Ourselves Tragedy Worth
Forgiveness changes the way we remember.
HENRI NOUWEN

Change Forgiveness Remember Way
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Deep Eyes God Heart Place Trust Unique
It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.
HENRI NOUWEN

Discover Effort Gift Possession Result Share Solitude Worth
The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Illusion Leadership Man Thinking
Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.
HENRI NOUWEN

Foundation Life Patience Spiritual Time
Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
HENRI NOUWEN

Darkness Desperate Hope Live
Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.
HENRI NOUWEN

Illusion Life Property Share Violence
Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.
HENRI NOUWEN

Afraid God Guide Hands Love See Trust
Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.
HENRI NOUWEN

Enemy Life Rejection Sacred Spiritual Voice
Your heart is greater than your wounds.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Heart Wound Yourself
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
HENRI NOUWEN

Myself Search Son Time
What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
HENRI NOUWEN

Ability Heart Human Mindset Ourselves Thinking
Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.
HENRI NOUWEN

Himself Impossible Listening Live Serious Solitude Spiritual

Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.

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Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.

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