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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

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

Change Offering People Space
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
Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved.
HENRI NOUWEN

Experience Joy Love Yourself
Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.
HENRI NOUWEN

Community Food Mindset People Relationship Togetherness
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
HENRI NOUWEN

Life Ourselves Source Wound

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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