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I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.

Henri Nouwen

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
Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
HENRI NOUWEN

Darkness Desperate Hope Live
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
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 NOUWEN

Alive Community Growth Heart Oneself Quality
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
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
The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Life Popularity Power Rejection Success Trap
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
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
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
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
Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.
HENRI NOUWEN

Direction Fear Generosity Love Time
Those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. LOVE is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.
HENRI NOUWEN

Fear Greatness Joy Love Pain Risk Strong Worth
For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.
HENRI NOUWEN

Children Conquer Country Defeat God Man Woman
Our life is a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment.
HENRI NOUWEN

Joy Kiss Life Moments Ourselves Sadness Time
Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life.
HENRI NOUWEN

Attention God Life Path Pay Yourself

I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.

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I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.

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