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

Henri Nouwen

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
Your heart is greater than your wounds.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Heart Wound Yourself
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
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
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
If you feel loved, you can do a thousand things. If you feel rejected, everything becomes a problem.
HENRI NOUWEN

Feeling Love Problem Rejection Yourself
Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.
HENRI NOUWEN

Close Distance Lose Silence Word
Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.
HENRI NOUWEN

Afraid Discover Empty Fear God Hold On Myself Stand
You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
HENRI NOUWEN

Kind Live Thinking Way Yourself
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Angel Drink Each Other Need Sorrow Strength
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
Forgiveness changes the way we remember.
HENRI NOUWEN

Change Forgiveness Remember Way
The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.
HENRI NOUWEN

Feeling Healing Hide Oneself
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
In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
HENRI NOUWEN

Life Ourselves Source Wound
I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.
HENRI NOUWEN

Community Feeling Solitude Strong
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
If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.
HENRI NOUWEN

Essential Life Myself
Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you’d rather not go.
HENRI NOUWEN

Easy Hard Life Radical Yourself
I trust in you, Lord, but keep helping me in my moments of distrust and doubt.
HENRI NOUWEN

Doubt Help Moments Myself Trust
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
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
My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.
HENRI NOUWEN

Complain Discover Interrupt Life Myself Work
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Care Friendship Grief Moments Silence Time Tolerance
Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others.
HENRI NOUWEN

Fulfill Greatness Lying Ourselves
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
HENRI NOUWEN

Myself Search Son Time

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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