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Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.

Henri Nouwen

The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Life Popularity Power Rejection Success Trap
Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.
HENRI NOUWEN

Fake Illusion Solitude Transformation
Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.
HENRI NOUWEN

Life Maturity Spiritual Yourself
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
HENRI NOUWEN

Hard Time Inspirational Rejection Thinking
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
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
Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others.
HENRI NOUWEN

Fulfill Greatness Lying Ourselves
Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
HENRI NOUWEN

Darkness Desperate Hope Live
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
The spiritual life is a life beyond moods. It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of happiness or depression.
HENRI NOUWEN

Beyond Depression Feeling Happiness Joy Life Mood Ourselves Spiritual Victim
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
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
The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.
HENRI NOUWEN

Feeling Healing Hide Oneself
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
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
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

Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.

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Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.

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