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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.

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

Life Ourselves Source 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
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
This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.
HENRI NOUWEN

Generosity Life Love Opportunity Time
Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as those whom God has given you to love.
HENRI NOUWEN

Dare Friendship God Love Reality Yourself
One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.
HENRI NOUWEN

Forget Life Ourselves Tragedy Worth
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
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
Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
HENRI NOUWEN

Ground Hide Stand Treasure Trust
Your heart is greater than your wounds.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Heart Wound 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
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
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

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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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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Popular Authors

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