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A Little Criticism Makes Me Angry, And A Little Rejection Makes Me Depressed. A Little Praise Raises My Spirits, And A Little Success Excites Me. It Takes Very Little To Raise Me Up Or Thrust Me Down. Often I Am Like A Small Boat On The Ocean, Completely At The Mercy Of Its Waves. All The Time And Energy I Spend In Keeping Some Kind Of Balance And Preventing Myself From Being Tipped Over And Drowning Shows My Life Is Mostly A Struggle For Survival: Not A Holy Struggle, But An Anxious Struggle Resulting From The Mistaken Idea That It Is The World That Defines Me.

-Henri Nouwen

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A Little Criticism Makes

Henri Nouwen

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A Little Criticism Makes Me Angry, And A Little Rejection Makes Me Depressed. A Little Praise Raises My Spirits, And A Little Success Excites Me. It Takes Very Little To Raise Me Up Or Thrust Me Down. Often I Am Like A Small Boat On The Ocean, Completely At The Mercy Of Its Waves. All The Time And Energy I Spend In Keeping Some Kind Of Balance And Preventing Myself From Being Tipped Over And Drowning Shows My Life Is Mostly A Struggle For Survival: Not A Holy Struggle, But An Anxious Struggle Resulting From The Mistaken Idea That It Is The World That Defines Me.

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Jesus Didn't Live Alone. He Had Peter, John, And James Around Him. There Were The Twelve And The Other Disciples. They Formed Circles Of Intimacy Around Jesus. We Too Need These Circles Of Intimacy, But It's A Discipline.

Compassion Can Never Coexist With Judgement Because Judgement Creates The Distance, The Distinction, Which Prevents Us From Really Being With The Other.

The Gospel Word Of The Day Can Become Like A Painting On The Walls. Of Your Inner Room, The Inner Room That Is Your Heart.

We Have To Keep Asking Ourselves: 'what Does It All Mean? What Is God Trying To Tell Us? How Are We Called To Live In The Midst Of All This?' Without Such Questions Our Lives Become Numb And Flat.

That Is Our Vocation: To Convert The Enemy Into A Guest And To Create The Free And Fearless Space Where Brotherhood And Sisterhood Can Be Formed And Fully Experienced.

The Tragedy Of Our Lives Is That, While We Suffer From The Wounds Afflicted On Us By Those Who Love Us, We Cannot Avoid Wounding Those We Want To Love.

A Spiritual Life Without Prayer Is Like The Gospel Without Christ.

I Have Found It Very Important In My Own Life To Try To Let Go Of My Wishes And Instead To Live In Hope. I Am Finding That When I Choose To Let Go Of My Sometimes Petty And Superficial Wishes And Trust That My Life Is Precious And Meaningful In The Eyes Of God Something Really New, Something Beyond My Own Expectations Begins To Happen For Me. (finding My Way Home)

The Crisis Of Our Prayer Life Is That Our Minds May Be Filled With Ideas Of God While Our Hearts Remain Far From Him.

Those Who Are Marginal In The World Are Central In The Church, And That Is How It Is Supposed To Be! Thus We Are Called As Members Of The Church To Keep Going To The Margins Of Our Society. The Homeless, The Starving, Parentless Children, People With Aids, Our Emotionally Disturbed Brothers And Sisters - They Require Our First Attention.

Living A Spiritual Life Requires A Change Of Heart, A Conversion. Such A Conversion May Be Marked By A Sudden Inner Change, Or It Can Take Place Through A Long, Quiet Process Of Transformation. But It Always Involves An Inner Experience Of Oneness.

Peacemaking Is A Full-time Vocation That Includes Each Member Of God's People.

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.

Positive Thinking

Ministers Are Powerless People Who Have Nothing To Boast Of Except Their Weaknesses. But When The Lord Whom They Serve Fills Them With His Blessing They Will Move Mountains And Change The Hearts Of People Wherever They Go.

We Seldom Realize Fully That We Are Sent To Fulfill God-given Tasks. We Act As If We Were Simply Dropped Down In Creation And Have To Decide To Entertain Ourselves Until We Die. But We Were Sent Into The World By God, Just As Jesus Was. Once We Start Living Our Lives With That Conviction, We Will Soon Know What We Were Sent To Do.

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.

Peace Is First Of All The Art Of Being.

When We Keep Claiming The Light, We Will Find Ourselves Becoming More And More Radiant.

Teaching, Therefore, Asks First Of All The Creation Of A Space Where Students And Teachers Can Enter Into A Fearless Communication With Each Other And Allow Their Respective Life Experiences To Be Their Primary And Most Valuable Source Of Growth And Maturation. It Asks For A Mutual Trust In Which Those Who Teach And Those Who Want To Learn Can Become Present To Each Other, Not As Opponents, But As Those Who Share In The Same Struggle And Search For The Same Truth.

What Is Important Is How Well We Love. God Will Make Our Love Fruitful, Whether We See That Fruitfulness Or Not.

When We Give Generously, With An Abundance Mentality, What We Give Away Will Multiply.

Abundance Mentality

The Farther The Outward Journey Takes You, The Deeper The Inward Journey Must Be.

One Of The Experiences Of Prayer Is That It Seems That Nothing Happens. But When You Start With It And Look Back Over A Long Period Of Prayer, You Suddenly Realize That Something Has Happened. What Is Most Close, Most Intimate, Most Present, Often Cannot Be Experienced Directly But Only With A Certain Distance. When I Think That I Am Only Distracted, Just Wasting My Time, Something Is Happening Too Immediate For Knowing, Understanding, And Experiencing. Only In Retrospect Do I Realize That Something Very Important Has Taken Place.

Christian Community Is The Place Where We Keep The Flame Of Hope Alive Among Us And Take It Seriously So That It Can Grow And Become Stronger In Us.

As Long As We Have Our Stories There Is Hope.

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.

The Discipline Of Gratitude Is The Explicit Effort To Acknowledge That All I Am And Have Is Given To Me As A Gift Of Love, A Gift To Be Celebrated With Joy.

Trust That The Treasure We Look For Is Hidden In The Ground On Which We Stand.

If You Believe You Are The Beloved Of God, You Need To Spend Time Listening To His Voice - Period! You Can't Say, "yes God Calls Me The Beloved, But I Have To Go Out To Do Something Now."

Our Efforts To Disconnect Ourselves From Our Own Suffering End Up Disconnecting Our Suffering From God's Suffering For Us. The Way Out Of Our Loss And Hurt Is In And Through.

Intimacy Is Not A Happy Medium. It Is A Way Of Being In Which The Tension Between Distance And Closeness Is Dissolved And A New Horizon Appears. Intimacy Is Beyond Fear.

The Soul Of The Artist Cannot Remain Hidden.

Indeed, When God's Glory Dwells In Me, There Is Nothing Too Far Away, Nothing Too Painful, Nothing Too Strange Or Too Familiar That It Cannot Contain And Renew By Its Touch. Every Time I Recognize The Glory Of God In Me And Give It Space To Manifest Itself To Me, All That Is Human Can Be Brought There And Nothing Will Be The Same Again.

To Live In The Present, We Must Deeply Believe That What Is Most Important Is In The Here And Now.

Live In The Present

To Give Someone A Blessing Is The Most Significant Affirmation We Can Offer.

The World Is Evil Only When You Become Its Slave.

Waiting Is A Period Of Learning. The Longer We Wait, The More We Hear About Him For Whom We Are Waiting.

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For Many, Religion Has To Do With What We Are Allowed To Do And Not Allowed To Do. In The End, That Doesn't Bear Fruit.

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I've Had A Tremendous Problem With Depression In My Life. I'd Rather Not Talk About It, Because It's Over. But Depression Is Real.

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We Must Ask Ourselves How Many Times Others Would Benefit More From Our Silence Than From Our Words.

Every Time You Reject Yourself, You Idealize Others

...the Word That Seems Best To Summarize The Desire Of The Human Heart Is 'communion.' ...wherever We Look It Is Communion That We Seek.

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In A World So Torn Apart By Rivalry, Anger, And Hatred, We Have The Privileged Vocation To Be Living Signs Of A Love That Can Bridge All Divisions And Heal All Wounds.

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The Friend Who Cares Makes It Clear That Whatever Happens In The External World, Being Present To Each Other Is What Really Matters. In Fact, It Matters More Than Pain, Illness, Or Even Death.

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When We Have Nothing To Cling To As Our Own And Cease Thinking Of Ourselves As People Who Must Defend Privileges, We Can Open Ourselves Freely To Others With The Faithful Expectation That Our Strength Will Manifest Itself In Our Shared Weakness.

Today I Personally Believe That While Jesus Came To Open The Door To God's House, All Human Beings Can Walk Through That Door, Whether They Know About Jesus Or Not. Today I See It As My Call To Help Every Person Claim His Or Her Own Way To God.

Prayer Is The Breath Of Your Life Which Gives You The Freedom To Go And Stay Where You Wish And To Find The Many Signs Which Point Out The Way To A New Land.

Discipline In The Spiritual Life Is The Concentrated Effort To Create The Space And Time Where God Can Become Our Master And Where We Can Respond Freely To God's Guidance.

Joy Is What Makes Life Worth Living, But For Many Joy Seems Hard To Find. They Complain That Their Lives Are Sorrowful And Depressing. What Then Brings The Joy We So Much Desire? Are Some People Just Lucky, While Others Have Run Out Of Luck? Strange As It May Sound, We Can Choose Joy. Two People Can Be Part Of The Same Event, But One May Choose To Live It Quite Differently Than The Other. One May Choose To Trust That What Happened, Painful As It May Be, Holds A Promise. The Other May Choose Despair And Be Destroyed By It. What Makes Us Human Is Precisely This Freedom Of Choice.

You Don't Think Your Way Into A New Kind Of Living. You Live Your Way Into A New Kind Of Thinking.

Joy Is Based On The Spiritual Knowledge That, While The World In Which We Live Is Shrouded In Darkness, God Has Overcome The World.

Aging Does Not Need To Be Hidden Or Denied, But Can Be Understood, Affirmed And Experienced As A Process Of Growth By Which The Mystery Of Life Is Slowly Revealed To Us.

When We Honestly Ask Ourselves Which Person In Our Lives Mean The Most To Us, We Often Find That It Is Those Who, Instead Of Giving Advice, Solutions, Or Cures, Have Chosen Rather To Share Our Pain And Touch Our Wounds With A Warm And Tender Hand. 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 And Face With Us The Reality Of Our Powerlessness, That Is A Friend Who Cares.

What Once Seemed Such A Curse Has Become A Blessing. All The Agony That Threatened To Destroy My Life Now Seems Like The Fertile Ground For Greater Trust, Stronger Hope, And Deeper Love.

For As Long As You Can Remember, You Have Been A Pleaser, Depending On Others To Give You An Identity. You Need Not Look At That Only In A Negative Way. You Wanted To Give Your Heart To Others, And You Did So Quickly And Easily. But Now You Are Being Asked To Let Go Of All These Self-made Props And Trust That God Is Enough For You. You Must Stop Being A Pleaser And Reclaim Your Identity As A Free Self.

Where True Inner Freedom Is, There Is God. And Where God Is, There We Want To Be.

Somehow, Somewhere, I Know That God Loves Me, Even Though I Do Not Feel That Love As I Can Feel A Human Embrace, Even Though I Do Not Hear A Voice As I Hear Human Words...god Is Greater Than My Senses, Greater Than My Thoughts, Greater Than My Heart. I Do Believe That He Touches Me In Places That Are Unknown Even To Myself.

I Am Very Grateful That I Am In Touch With So Many Different Church Groups. I Am Always Very Moved By The Fact That So Many People - Practically Over The Spectrum Of The Christian World - Are Responding To My Writing.

Community Life Is Not Easy For Somebody Like Me, Who Is Used To Living By Himself And Doing What He Wants. It's A Demanding Life, And You Quickly Get In Touch With Your Own Handicaps And Weaknesses.

Based Or Our Baptism, All Are Called To A Mystical Life, To Communion With God. We Need To Claim That, To Taste It And Feel It, To Trust That The Deeper We Live This Communion, The More Our Behavior Will Witness To The Truth.

Prayer Is Not One Of The Many Things The Community Does. Rather, It Is Its Very Beingbut When Prayer Is No Longer Its Primary Concern, And When Its Many Activities Are No Longer Seen And Experienced As Part Of Prayer Itself, The Community Quickly Degenerates Into A Club With A Common Cause But No Common Vocation.

Through Discipline, Discipline Is The Other Side Of Discipleship. If You Want To Follow Jesus, You Have To Have Discipline.

God Is Your Safety And Your Home. You Are Well Embraced." Start Living The Multi-formity Of Life From This Place. If You Can Hold On To That, It All Becomes One.

Ministers Are Tempted To Join The Ranks Of Those Who Consider It Their Primary Task To Keep Other People Busy … But Our Task Is The Opposite Of Distraction … How To Keep Them From Being So Busy That They Can No Longer Hear The Voice Of God Who Speaks In Silence.

Praying Is No Easy Matter. It Demands A Relationship In Which You Allow Someone Other Than Yourself To Enter Into The Very Center Of Your Person, To See There What You Would Rather Leave In Darkness, And To Touch There What You Would Rather Leave Untouched.

To The Degree That We Embrace The Truth That Our Identity Is Not Rooted In Our Success, Power, Or Popularity, But In God's Infinite Love, To That Degree Can We Let Go Of Our Need To Judge.

For Me The University Has Always Been An Ideal Context For Spiritual Formation. I Always Felt That If You Want To Offer Spiritual Formation At The University, You Can.

When Suddenly You Seem To Lose All You Thought You Had Gained, Do Not Despair. You Must Expect Setbacks And Regressions. Don't Say To Yourself "all Is Lost. I Have To Start All Over Again." This Is Not True. What You Have Gained You Have Gained....when You Return To The The Road, You Return To The Place Where You Left It, Not To Where You Started.

When We Are Securely Rooted In Personal Intimacy With The Source Of Life, It Will Be Possible To Remain Flexible Without Being Relativistic, Convinced Without Being Rigid, Willing To Confront Without Being Offensive, Gentle And Forgiving Without Being Soft, And True Witnesses Without Being Manipulative.

Prayer Is First Of All Listening To God. It's Openness. God Is Always Speaking; He's Always Doing Something.

Somewhere We Know That Without Silence Words Lose Their Meaning, That Without Listening Speaking No Longer Heals, That Without Distance Closeness Cannot Cure.

Our Society Is So Fragmented, Our Family Lives So Sundered By Physical And Emotional Distance, Our Friendships So Sporadic, Our Intimacies So 'in-between' Things And Often So Utilitarian, That There Are Few Places Where We Can Feel Truly Safe.

Jesus Does Not Respond To Our Worry-filled Way Of Living By Saying That We Should Not Be So Busy With Worldly Affairs. He Does Not Try To Pull Us Away From The Many Events, Activities, And People That Make Up Our Lives. . . . He Asks Us To Shift The Point Of Gravity, To Relocate The Center Of Our Attention, To Change Our Priorities. Jesus Does Not Speak About A Change Of Activities, A Change In Contacts, Or Even A Change Of Pace. He Speaks About A Change Of Heart.

While Optimism Makes Us Live As If Someday Soon Things Will Soon Go Better For Us, Hope Frees Us From The Need To Predict The Future And Allows Us To Live In The Present, With The Deep Trust That God Will Never Leave Us Alone But Will Fulfill The Deepest Desires Of Our Heart... Joy In This Perspective Is The Fruit Of Hope.

Your Heart Is Greater Than Your Wounds.

I Am Learning That The Best Cure For Hypocrisy Is Community. Hypocrisy Is Not So Much The Result Of Not Living What I Preach But Much More Of Not Confessing My Inability To Fully Live Up To My Own Words.

As Long As We Relate To The Trees, The Rivers, The Mountains, The Fields And The Oceans As Properties Which We Can Manipulate According To Our Real Or Fabricated Needs, Nature Remains Opaque, And Does Not Reveal To Us Its True Being.

You Are A Christian Only So Long As You Constantly Pose Critical Questions To The Society You Live In, So Long As You Stay Unsatisfied With The Status Quo, And Keep Saying That A New World Is Yet To Come.

Discipline Means To Prevent Everything In Your Life From Being Filled Up. Discipline Means That Somewhere You're Not Occupied, And Certainly Not Preoccupied. In The Spiritual Life, Discipline Means To Create That Space In Which Something Can Happen That You Hadn't Planned Or Counted On.

All The Great Spiritual Leaders In History Were People Of Hope. Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, And Dorothy Day All Lived With A Promise In Their Hearts That Guided Them Toward The Future Without The Need To Know Exactly What It Would Look Like. Let's Live With Hope.

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.

It Is Not Easy To Enter Into The Silence And Reach Beyond The Many Boisterous And Demanding Voices Of Our World And To Discover There The Small Intimate Voice Saying: 'you Are My Belived Child, On You My Favor Rests.'

Our Lives Are Unique Stones In The Mosaic Of Human Existence -- Priceless And Irreplaceable.

When We Have Sold Our Identity To The Judges Of This World, We Are Bound To Become Restless, Because Of A Growing Need For Affirmation And Praise.

As We Read Spiritually About Spiritual Things, We Open Our Hearts To God's Voice. Sometimes We Must Be Willing To Put Down The Book We Are Reading And Just Listen To What God Is Saying To Us Through Our Words.

Live, Work, And Travel With Handicapped People, So I Can Stay Close To Them. But Since I Am Often Busy With Many Things, It's A Constant Struggle To Keep The Handicapped Members Of Our Community In The Center Of My Life.

Joy And Laughter Are The Gifts Of Living In The Presence Of God And Trusting That Tomorrow Is Not Worth Worrying About.

Although We Tend To Think About Saints As Holy And Pious, And Picture Them With Halos Above Their Heads And Ecstatic Gazes, True Saints Are Much More Accessible. They Are Men And Women Like Us, Who Live Ordinary Lives And Struggle With Ordinary Problems. What Makes Them Saints Is Their Clear And Unwavering Focus On God And God's People.

Prayer Is Not A Pious Decoration Of Life But The Breath Of Human Existence.

To Listen Is Very Hard, Because It Asks Of Us So Much Interior Stability That We No Longer Need To Prove Ourselves By Speeches, Arguments, Statements Or Declarations. True Listeners No Longer Have An Inner Need To Make Their Presence Known. They Are Free To Receive, Welcome, To Accept.

It Is To This Silence [contemplative Prayer] That We All Are Called.

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.

In God's Eyes The Most Significant Is Often The Most Hidden.

Suffering Invites Us To Place Our Hurts In Larger Hands. In Christ We See God Suffering – For Us. And Calling Us To Share In God’s Suffering Love For A Hurting World. The Small And Even Overpowering Pains Of Our Lives Are Intimately Connected With The Greater Pains Of Christ. Our Daily Sorrows Are Anchored In A Greater Sorrow And Therefore A Larger Hope.

In 1984, Jean Vanier Invited Me Me To Visit L'arche Community In Trosly, France. He Didn't Say "we Need A Priest" Or "we Could Use You." He Said, "maybe Our Community Can Offer You A Home." I Visited Several Times, Then Resigned From Harvard And Went To Live With The Community For A Year. I Loved It! I Didn't Have Much To Do. I Wasn't Pastor Or Anything. I Was Just A Friend Of The Community.

The Greatest Trap In Our Life Is Not Success, Popularity Or Power, But Self-rejection.

Meaningful Life

The Best Of Community Does Give One A Deep Sense Of Belonging And Well-being; And In That Sense Community Takes Away Loneliness.

Who Can Take Away Suffering Without Entering It?

When The Imitation Of Christ Does Not Mean To Live A Life Like Christ, But To Live Your Life As Authentically As Christ Lived His, Then There Are Many Ways And Forms In Which A Man Can Be A Christian.

Self-rejection Is The Greatest Enemy Of The Spiritual Life Because It Contradicts The Sacred Voice That Calls Us The Beloved.

Once You Are In Communion With God, You Have The Eyes To See And The Ears To Hear Other People In Whom God Has Also Found A Dwelling Place.

The Real Question Is: How Can I Live So That My Death Will Be Fruitful For Others?

Forgiveness Changes The Way We Remember.

Fundraising Is A Very Rich And Beautiful Activity. It Is A Confident, Joyful And Hope-filled Expression Of Ministry. In Ministering To Each Other, Each From The Riches That He Or She Possesses, We Work Together For The Full Coming Of God's Kingdom.

You Have To Dare To Live Through The Pain And Struggle. Acknowledge Your Anguish But Do Not Let It Pull You Out Of Yourself. Hold On To Your Chosen Direction, Your Discipline, Your Prayer, Your Work, Your Guides, And Trust That One Day Love Will Have Conquered Enough Of You That Even The Most Fearful Part Will Allow Love To Cast Out All Fear.

People Have Filled An Enormously Important Role In My Life - More Than Books! For Me, It's Not The Formal Advising Or The Therapy That Meant So Much. It Was More The Fact That Someone Committed Himself Or Herself To Me. They Were Really Interested In My Life; They Wanted To Know What I Was Doing; They Followed Me; They Dared To Confront And Challenge Me.

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.

God's Kingdom Is A Place Of Abundance Where Every Generous Act Overflows Its Original Bounds And Becomes Part Of The Unbounded Grace Of God At Work In The World.

It Is Precisely In Times Of Spiritual Dryness That We Must Hold On To Our Spiritual Discipline So That We Can Grow Into New Intimacy With God.

Silence Is A Very Concrete, Practical, And Useful Discipline In All Our Ministerial Tasks. It Can Be Seen As A Portable Cell Taken With Us From The Solitary Place Into The Midst Of Our Ministry. Silence Is Solitude Practiced In Action.

Those Who Think That They Have Arrived, Have Lost Their Way. Those Who Think They Have Reached Their Goal, Have Missed It. Those Who Think They Are Saints, Are Demons.

Forgiveness Means That I Continually Am Willing To Forgive The Other Person For Not Being God — For Not Fulfilling All My Needs. I, Too, Must Ask Forgiveness For Not Being Able To Fulfill Other People's Needs. … The Interesting Thing Is That When You Can Forgive People For Not Being God, Then You Can Celebrate That They Are A Reflection Of God.

When We Learn To Move Through Suffering, Rather Than Avoid It, Then We Greet It Differently. We Become Willing To Let It Teach Us. We Even Begin To See How God Can Use It For Some Larger End.

Hope Is Willing To Leave Unanswered Questions Unanswered And Unknown Futures Unknown. Hope Makes You See God's Guiding Hand Not Only In The Gentle And Pleasant Moments But Also In The Shadows Of Disappointment And Darkness.

When You Have Loved Deeply, That Love Can Grow Even Stronger After The Death Of The Person You Love. That Is The Core Message Of Jesus.

Community Is Where Humility And Glory Touch.

I Know That I Have To Move From Speaking About Jesus To Letting Him Speak Within Me, From Thinking About Jesus To Letting Him Think Within Me, From Acting For And With Jesus To Letting Him Act Through Me. I Know The Only Way For Me To See The World Is To See It Through His Eyes.

The Real 'work' Of Prayer Is To Become Silent And Listen To The Voice That Says Good Things About Me.

Every Time I Take A Step In The Direction Of Generosity, I Know I Am Moving From Fear To Love.

Ministry Is A Very Confronting Service. It Does Not Allow People To Live With Illusions Of Immortality And Wholeness. It Keeps Reminding Others That They Are Mortal And Broken, But Also That With The Recognition Of This Condition, Liberation Starts.

Our Spiritual Life Is A Life In Which We Wait, Actively Present To The Moment, Expecting That New Things Will Happen To Us, New Things That Are Far Beyond Our Own Imagination Or Prediction. This, Indeed, Is A Very Radical Stance Toward Life In A World Preoccupied With Control.

Each Day Holds A Surprise. But Only If We Expect It Can We See, Hear, Or Feel It When It Comes To Us. Let's Not Be Afraid To Receive Each Day's Surprise, Whether It Comes To Us As Sorrow Or As Joy It Will Open A New Place In Our Hearts, A Place Where We Can Welcome New Friends And Celebrate More Fully Our Shared Humanity.

Take Prayer With You Wherever You Go. Say It Anytime, And Then Focus Your Mind And Heart On God.

Perhaps Nothing Helps Us Make The Movement From Our Little Selves To A Larger World Than Remembering God In Gratitude. Such A Perspective Puts God In View In All Of Life, Not Just In The Moments We Set Aside For Worship Or Spiritual Disciplines. Not Just In The Moments When Life Seems Easy.

The Great Call For The Church Is To Not Just Be Concerned About Right Or Wrong Behavior, Which Is Moral Life, But About Communion With God, Which Is Mystical Life.

The Question Is Not How Much Are You Going To Accomplish? Or Can You Show Some Results? But Are You In Love With Jesus? In Our World Of Brokeness And Despair, There Is An Enormous Need For Men And Women Who Know The Heart Of God; A Heart That Forgives, Cares, Reaches Out And Wants To Heal.

Pay Attention To The People God Puts In Your Path If You Want To Discern What God Is Up To In Your Life.

My Writing Has Developed Drastically . The Return Of The Prodigal Son Is The Most Important Thing I've Done, And My Most Mature Book.

Good Families Always Ritualize The Table. You Can Say, "this Is A Christmas Meal; This Is A Birthday Meal."

Community Means That People Come Together Around The Table, Not Just To Feed Their Bodies, But To Feed Their Minds And Their Relationships.

There Are Areas I Have To Work On. I Had Some Questions And Some Struggles, But It Was An Enormously Important Time For Me.

I Have An Increasing Sense That The Most Important Crisis Of Our Time Is Spiritual And That We Need Places Where People Can Grow Stronger In The Spirit And Be Able To Integrate The Emotional Struggles In Their Spiritual Journeys.

To Be Baptized Means To Make The Passage With The People Of Israel And With Jesus From Slavery To Freedom And From Death To New Life. It Is A Commitment To A Life In And Through Jesus.

Television Is Obviously An Enormous Intruder. Quite Often People Say They Have No Time, But In Fact They Waste A Lot Of Time On Things That Are Not Healthy.

Spiritual Identity Means We Are Not What We Do Or What People Say About Us. And We Are Not What We Have. We Are The Beloved Daughters And Sons Of God.

Theological Formation Is The Gradual And Often Painful Discovery Of God's Incomprehensibility. You Can Be Competent In Many Things, But You Cannot Be Competent In God.

We Need To Remind Each Other That The Cup Of Sorrow Is Also The Cup Of Joy, That Precisely What Causes Us Sadness Can Become The Fertile Ground For Gladness.

The More We Touch The Intimate Love Of God Which Creates, Sustains, And Guides Us, The More We Recognize The Multitude Of Fruits That Come Forth From That Love.

Solitude Is An Essential Element For The Spiritual Health Of A Child. If We Only Stimulate Our Children - Keep Them Busy With Endless Stories With No Space To Be Alone - That's Not Good.

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.

My Whole Life I Have Been Complaining That My Work Was Constantly Interrupted, Until I Discovered That My Interruptions Were My Work.

Obviously A Child Can Never Conceive Solitude If His Parents Aren't Living It Somewhere Themselves. I Don't Mean That To Be Alone You Have To Get Down On Your Knees For An Hour In A Yoga Posture.

We Are All Healers Who Can Reach Out And Offer Health, And We Are All Patients In Constant Need Of Help.

Prayer Is Not What Is Done By Us, But Rather What Is Done By The Holy Spirit In Us.

The Main Question Is Not, How Can We Hide Our Wounds...but How Can We Put Our Woundedness In Service To Others.

Service To Others

The Great Teachers Are Always Those Who Can Live The Tension. They Are Not Criticizing Everybody, They're Not Complaining. They Give Young People A Vision.

As Peacemakers, We Must Resist All The Powers Of War And Destruction And Proclaim That Peace Is The Divine Gift Offered To All Who Affirm Life. Resistance Means Saying 'no' To All The Forces Of Death, Wherever They May Be.

It Is Precisely When You Are Loved A Lot That You Might Realize A Second Loneliness Which Is Not To Be Solved But Lived. This Second Loneliness Is An Existential Loneliness That Belongs To The Basis Of Our Being. It's Where We Are Unfulfilled Because Only God Can Fill Us.

Our Inclination Is To Show Our Lord Only What We Feel Comfortable With. But The More We Dare To Reveal Our Whole Trembling Self To Him, The More We Will Be Able To Sense That His Love, Which Is Perfect Love, Casts Out All Our Fears.

Feelings Of Guilt Dominate Our Work As Peacemakers We Cannot Last Long. But When We Have Opened Each Other's Eyes To The Great Human Gifts Among All People We Can Indeed Make Peacemaking A Way Of Being.

Friends Share Our Pain And Touch Our Wounds With A Gentle And Tender Hand.

As Those Who Are Chosen, Blessed, Broken, And Given, We Are Called To Live Our Lives With A Deep Inner Joy And Peace. It Is The Life Of The Beloved, Lived In A World Constantly Trying To Convince Us That The Burden Is On Us To Prove That We Are Worthy Of Being Loved.

Today's Reading Was "if They Ask You To Walk A Mile, Walk Two. Don't Take An Eye For An Eye Or A Tooth For A Tooth." You Have Chances Every Second To Live This Word, But It Has To Be In You. It Can't Just Be An Idea; It Has To Sink From The Mind Into The Heart.

Solitude Begins With A Time And Place For God, And Him Alone. If We Really Believe Not Only That God Exists But Also That He Is Actively Present In Our Lives—healing, Teaching, And Guiding — We Need To Set Aside A Time And Space To Give Him Our Undivided Attention.

I'm Learning That The Blessing Is Located In Our Poor People, In People Who Are Weak; They Are The Ones We Should Stay Close To, Not Because They Need Us But Because We Need To Receive From Them The Blessing.

The Great #‎ Conversion Called For By Jesus Is To Move From Belonging To The World To Belonging To God.

Home Is The Center Of My Being Where I Can Hear The Voice That Says: 'you Are My Beloved, On You My Favor Rests' - The Same Voice That Gave Life To The First Adam And Spoke To Jesus, The Second Adam; The Same Voice That Speaks To All The Children Of God And Sets Them Free To Live In The Midst Of A Dark World While Remaining In The Light.

The People Who Most Affected Me Were The Ones Who Got Right In There With Me, Who Cried With Me, But Who Also Had A Certain Authority, Who Dared To Say What Needed Saying.

A Happy Life Is A Life For Others.

The More You Are Called To Speak For God's Love, The More You Will Need To Deepen The Knowledge Of That Love In Your Own Heart. The Farther The Outward Journey Takes You, The Deeper The Inward Journey Must Be. Only When Your Roots Are Deep Can Your Fruits Be Abundant.

Most Christian Leadership Is Exercised By People Who Do Not Know How To Develop Healthy, Intimate Relationships And Have Opted For Power And Control Instead. Many Christian Empire-builders Have Been People Unable To Give And Receive Love.

Intimate Relationships

Keep A Space Where God Can Let Something Totally New Take Place.

The Christian Leader Of The Future Is Called To Be Completely Irrelevant And To Stand In This World With Nothing To Offer But His Or Her Own Vulnerable Self. God Loves Us, Not Because Of What We Do Or Accomplish, But Because God Has Created And Redeemed Us In Love.

Ministry Is The Least Important Thing. You Cannot Not Minister If You Are In Communion With God And Live In Community.

Too Many Of Us Are Lonely Ministers Practicing A Lonely Ministry.

When You Pray, You Open Yourself To The Influence Of The Power Which Has Revealed Itself As Love. The Power Gives You Freedom And Independence. Once Touched By This Power, You Are No Longer Swayed Back And Forth By The Countless Opinions, Ideas, And Feelings Which Flow Through You. You Have Found A Center For Your Life That Gives You A Creative Distance So That Everything You See, Hear, And Feel Can Be Tested Against The Source.

A Prayerful Life Is Not A Life In Which We Say Many Prayers, But A Life In Which Nothing, Absolutely Nothing, Is Done, Said, Or Understood Independently Of Him Who Is The Origin And Purpose Of Our Existence.

The Way Of Jesus Is Radically Different. It Is The Way Not Of Upward Mobility But Of Downward Mobility. It Is Going To The Bottom, Staying Behind The Sets And Choosing The Last Place! Why Is The Way Of Jesus Worth Choosing? Because It Is The Way To The Kingdom, The Way Jesus Took, And The Way That Brings Everlasting Life.

The Fruits Of Your Labors May Be Reaped Two Generations From Now. Trust, Even When You Don't See The Results.

I Am Working On Three Things: On Being A Prayerful Person; On Staying Close To The Handicapped; And On My Writing. These Are My Constant Concerns.

In This Crazy World, There's An Enormous Distinction Between Good Times And Bad, Between Sorrow And Joy. But In The Eyes Of God, They're Never Separated. Where There Is Pain, There Is Healing. Where There Is Mourning, There Is Dancing. Where There Is Poverty, There Is The Kingdom.

Life Is A Gift, Not To Possess, But To Share.

Life Is Not Entertainment. Life Is Not Distraction.

The Beatitudes Say, "blessed Are The Poor". They Don't Say, "blessed Are Those Who Care For The Poor."

Precisely Where I Feel My Poverty Is Where I Discover God's Blessing.

Jesus.. Says, 'let Go Of Your Complaints, Forgive Those Who Loved You Poorly, Step Over Your Feelings Of Being Rejected, And Have The Courage To Trust That You Won't Fall Into An Abyss Of Nothingness But Into The Safe Embrace Of A God Whose Love Will Heal All Your Wounds.

Christmas Is Believing That The Salvation Of The World Is God's Work, And Not Mine.

That's The Temptation Of The Devil: "turn Stones Into Bread! Be Relevant!"

When You're On The Bus Or Subway Or In Your Car, Why Busy Your Mind With All The Garbage Of Advertisements? Why Fill Your Mind With Television And Radio? Somehow You Have To Decide What Your Mind Will Receive. I Don't Mean You Shouldn't Ever Go To Movies Or Watch Television, But Control What Enters Your Mind And Heart. It's Not Just A Question Of Pushing Bad Things Out But Also A Question Of Holding On To Something Really Good.

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.

God Is A God Of The Present. God Is Always In The Moment, Be That Moment Hard Or Easy, Joyful And Painful.

Learning To Weep, Learning To Keep Vigil, Learning To Wait For The Dawn. Perhaps This Is What It Means To Be Human.

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Vartan Gregorian

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