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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.

-Henri Nouwen

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Intimacy Is Not A

Henri Nouwen

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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.

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Real Grief Is Not Healed By Time... If Time Does Anything, It Deepens Our Grief. The Longer We Live, The More Fully We Become Aware Of Who She Was For Us, And The More Intimately We Experience What Her Love Meant For Us. Real, Deep Love Is, As You Know, Very Unobtrusive, Seemingly Easy And Obvious, And So Present That We Take It For Granted. Therefore, It Is Only In Retrospect - Or Better, In Memory - That We Fully Realize Its Power And Depth. Yes, Indeed, Love Often Makes Itself Visible In Pain.

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 Spiritual Life Is A Reaching Out To Our Innermost Self, To Our Fellow Human And To Our God.

Through Compassion It Is Possible To Recognize That The Craving For Love That People Feel Resides Also In Our Own Hearts, That The Cruelty The World Knows All Too Well Is Also Rooted In Our Own Impulses. Through Compassion We Also Sense Our Hope For Forgiveness In Our Friends' Eyes And Our Hatred In Their Bitter Mouths. When They Kill, We Know That We Could Have Done It; When They Give Life, We Know That We Can Do The Same. For A Compassionate Person Nothing Human Is Alien: No Joy And No Sorrow, No Way Of Living And No Way Of Dying.

Solitude Is The Furnace Of Transformation.

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

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.

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.

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.

Hunger And Thirst

In Solitude We Become Aware That We Were Together Before We Came Together And That Life Is Not A Creation Of Our Will But Rather An Obedient Response To The Reality Of Our Being United.

Solitude Is Very Different From A 'time-out' From Our Busy Lives. Solitude Is The Very Ground From Which Community Grows. Whenever We Pray Alone, Study, Read, Write, Or Simply Spend Quiet Time Away From The Places Where We Interact With Each Other Directly, We Are Potentially Opened For A Deeper Intimacy With Each Other.

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

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.

To Receive Spiritual Direction Is To Recognize That God Does Not Solve Our Problems Or Answer All Our Questions, But Leads Us Closer To The Mystery Of Our Existence Where All Questions Cease.

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.

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.

People Forget Ideas; They Don't Forget The Real Presence.

Prayer And Action...can Never Be Seen As Contradictory Or Mutually Exclusive. Prayer Without Action Grows Into Powerless Pietism, And Action Without Prayer Degenerates Into Questionable Manipulation.

If You Want To Know Anything About Community, You Have To Realize That The Contemplative Side Is Essential. Community Without Retreating And Quiet Time Never Survives.

The More You Have Loved And Have Allowed Yourself To Suffer Because Of Your Love, The More You Will Be Able To Let Your Heart Grow Wider And Deeper. When Your Love Is Truly Giving And Receiving, Those Whom You Love Will Not Leave Your Heart Even When They Depart From You. The Pain Of Rejection, Absence, And Death Can Become Fruitful. Yes, As You Love Deeply The Ground Of Your Heart Will Be Broken More And More, But You Will Rejoice In The Abundance Of The Fruit It Will Bear.

We Are Not The Healers, We Are Not The Reconcilers, We Are Not The Givers Of Life. We Are Sinful, Broken, Vulnerable People Who Need As Much Care As Anyone We Care For.

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.

Patience Asks Us To Live The Moment To The Fullest, To Be Completely Present To The Moment, To Taste The Here And Now, To Be Where We Are. When We Are Impatient We Try To Get Away From Where We Are. We Behave As If The Real Thing Will Happen Tomorrow, Later, And Somewhere Else. Let's Be Patient And Trust That The Treasure We Look For Is Hidden In The Ground On Which We Stand.

Live In The Moment

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

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.

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.

Jesus Was A Revolutionary, Who Did Not Become An Extremist, Since He Did Not Offer An Ideology, But Himself. He Was Also A Mystic, Who Did Not Use His Intimate Relationship With God To Avoid The Social Evils Of His Time, But Shocked His Milieu To The Point Of Being Executed As A Rebel. In This Sense He Also Remains For Nuclear Man The Way To Liberation And Freedom.

Intimate Relationships

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

However, 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. Community Is The Fruit Of Our Capacity To Make The Interests Of Others More Important Than Our Own. The Question, Therefore, Is Not 'how Can We Make Community?' But, 'how Can We Develop And Nurture Giving Hearts?'

True Hospitality Is Welcoming The Stranger On Her Own Terms. This Kind Of Hospitality Can Only Be Offered By Those Who've Found The Center Of Their Lives In Their Own Hearts.

Who Am I? Where Have I Come From? Where Am I Going?-are Not Questions With An Answer But Questions That Open Us Up To New Questions Which Lead Us Deeper Into The Unshakeable Mystery Of Existence.

If We Want Other People To Give Us Something That Only God Can Give, We Become A Demon. We Say, "love Me!" And Before You Know It We Become Violent And Demanding And Manipulative. It's So Important That We Keep Forgiving One Another - Not Once In A While, But Every Moment Of Life.

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.

If You Meet God In Solitude, You Discover The God You Meet Is The God Who Embraces All People.

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

I Was Forced To Enter The Basement Of My Soul And Look Directly At What Was Hidden There, And To Choose, In The Face Of It All, Not Death But Life.

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.

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

...when You Can Look Into The Face Of Human Beings And You Have Enough Light To Recognize Them As Your Brothers And Sisters. Up Until Then It Is Night And Darkness Is Still With Us. Let Us Pray For The Light. It Is The Peace The World Cannot Give.

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.

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."

Is My Growing Old Making Me Any Closer To Christ? Am I Only Getting Older Or Am I Getting More Godly?

Compassion Means Full Immersion In The Condition Of Being Human.

One Way To Express The Spiritual Crisis Of Our Time Is To Say That Most Of Us Have An Address But Cannot Be Found There.

The Real Enemies Of Our Life Are The 'oughts' And The 'ifs.' They Pull Us Backward Into The Unalterable Past And Forward Into The Unpredictable Future. But Real Life Takes Place In The Here And Now.

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.

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.

When I Trust Deeply That Today God Is Truly With Me And Holds Me Safe In A Divine Embrace, Guiding Every One Of My Steps I Can Let Go Of My Anxious Need To Know How Tomorrow Will Look, Or What Will Happen Next Month Or Next Year. I Can Be Fully Where I Am And Pay Attention To The Many Signs Of God's Love Within Me And Around Me.

Living In A Community With Very Wounded People, I Came To See That I Had Lived Most Of My Life As A Tightrope Artist Trying To Walk On A High, Thin Cable From One Tower To The Other, Always Waiting For The Applause When I Had Not Fallen Off And Broken My Leg.

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.

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

The Resistance To Praying Is Like The Resistance Of Tightly Clenched Fists. This Image Shows A Tension, A Desire To Cling Tightly To Yourself, A Greediness Which Betrays Fear.

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.

[the Return Of The Prodigal Book] Came Out Of My Emotional And Spiritual Journey During The Four Months I Was Gone From Daybreak Because Of Depression.

Life Is Not A Possession To Be Defended, But A Gift To Be Shared.

Those Who Keep Speaking About The Sun While Walking Under A Cloudy Sky Are Messengers Of Hope, The True Saints Of Our Day.

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

Our First Responsibility In The Midst Of Violence Is To Prevent It From Destroying Us.

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.

Writing Is Not Just A Job. It Helps Me To Pray. It's A Way Of Being.

It Is Hard To Bear With People Who Stand Still Along The Way, Lose Heart, And Seek Their Happiness In Little Pleasures Which They Cling To...you Feel Sad About All That Self-indulgence And Self-satisfaction, For You Know With An Indestructible Certainty That Something Greater Is Coming.

What Is Hope?hope Is That Inner Dynamic That Compels Us To Explore And Pursue The Expectations Built Into The Human Condition. Hope Was Born The Day The First Human Beings Discovered The First Bridge And Decided Not To Jump Off The Bridge In Despair, But To Cross It

When People Show You Their Boundaries ("i Can't Do This For You") You Feel Rejected...part Of Your Struggle Is To Set Boundaries To Your Own Love. Only When You Are Able To Set Your Own Boundaries Will You Be Able To Acknowledge, Respect And Even Be Grateful For The Boundaries Of Others.

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

The Pain That Comes From Deep Love Makes Your Love More Fruitful. It Is Like A Plow That Breaks The Ground To Allow The Seed To Take Root.

I Want My Work To Create Space Where People Can Meet God, Rather Than Give Them Something They Can "apply" To Their Daily Life.

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

Community Is Where Humility And Glory Touch.

In Their Poverty, The Mentally Handicapped Reveal God To Us And Hold Us Close To The Gospel.

Mentally Handicapped

In The Face Of The Oppressed I Recognize My Own Face, And In The Hands Of The Oppressor I Recognize My Own Hands. Their Flesh Is My Flesh, Their Blood Is My Blood, Their Pain Is My Pain, Their Smile Is My Smile.

Spiritual Maturity Is Not Knowing What To Do With Your Whole Life, But Just Knowing What To Do Next.

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.

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.

...real Care Means The Willingness To Help Each Other In Making Our Brokenness Into The Gateway To Joy.

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.

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.

Real Greatness Is Often Hidden, Humble, Simple, And Unobtrusive. It Is Not Easy To Trust Ourselves And Our Actions Without Public Affirmation. We Must Have Strong Self-confidence Combined With Deep Humility.

The Truth, Even Though I Cannot Feel It Right Now, Is That I Am The Chosen Child Of God, Precious In God's Eyes, Called The Beloved From All Eternity And Held Safe In An Everlasting Embrace... We Must Dare To Opt Consciously For Our Chosenness And Not Allow Our Emotions, Feelings, Or Passions To Seduce Us Into Self-rejection.

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.

The World Is Waiting For New Saints, Ecstatic Men And Women Who Are So Deeply Rooted In The Love Of God That They Are Free To Imagine A New International Order.

As Long As We Have Our Stories There Is Hope.

Emit Gratitude As Though It Was Done

The Mystery Of Ministry Is That We Have Been Chosen To Make Our Own Limited And Very Conditional Love The Gateway For The Unlimited And Unconditional Love Of God.

Unconditional Love

While My Friend Always Spoke About The Sun, I Kept Speaking About The Clouds, Until One Day I Realized That It Was The Sun That Allowed Me To See The Clouds.

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

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

The Mystery Of One Man Is Too Immense And Too Profound To Be Explained By Another Man.

Although Many, We Might Even Say Most, Strangers In This World Become Easily The Victim Of A Fearful Hostility, It Is Possible For Men And Women And Obligatory For Christians To Offer An Open And Hospitable Space Where Strangers Can Cast Off Their Strangeness And Become Our Fellow Human Beings.

I Really Believe That What We Finally Want Is To Know God, As God Has Come To Be Known Through Jesus. Knowledge Is Knowledge Of The Heart - The Spirit - I Would Say. It Is The Spirit In Us Who Reveals God.

The Leaders Of The Future Will Be Those Who Dare To Claim Their Irrelevance In The Contemporary World As A Divine Vocation.

Any Dance Of Celebration Must Weave Both The Sorrows And The Blessings Into A Joyful Step....to Heal Is To Let The Holy Spirit Call Me To Dance, To Believe Again, Even Amid My Pain, That God Will Orchestrate And Guide My Life.

The More I Think About The Human Suffering In Our World And My Desire To Offer A Healing Response, The More I Realize How Crucial It Is Not To Allow Myself To Become Paralyzed By Feelings Of Helplessness And Guilt. More Important Than Ever Is To Be Very Faithful To My Vocation To Do Well The Few Things I Am Called To Do And Hold On To The Joy And Peace They Bring Me. I Must Resist The Temptation To Let The Forces Of Darkness Pull Me Into Despair And Make Me One More Of Their Many Victims.

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.

A Happy Life Is A Life For Others.

One Of The Most Beautiful Ways For Spiritual Formation To Take Place Is To Let Your Insecurity Lead You Closer To The Lord. Natural Hypersensitivity Can Become An Asset; It Makes You Aware Of Your Need To Be With People And It Allows You To Be More Willing To Look At Their Needs.

As We Are Involved In Unceasing Thinking, So We Are Called To Unceasing Prayer.

The Art Of Living Is To Enjoy What We Can See And Not Complain About What Remains In The Dark. When We Are Able To Take The Next Step With Trust That We Will Have Enough Light For The Step That Follows, We Can Walk Through Life With Joy And Be Surprised At How Far We Go.

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

This Sounds Very Simple And Maybe Even Trite, But Very Few People Know That They Are Loved Without Condition Or Limits.

Do Not Hesitate To Love And To Love Deeply.

In Our Own Woundedness, We Can Become Sources Of Life For Others.

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

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.

We Have To Trust That Our Stories Deserve To Be Told. We May Discover That The Better We Tell Our Stories The Better We Will Want To Live Them.

How Do You Pray? Take The Gospel Of Each Day And Spend Ten Minutes With It. Read It, And Read It Again. Walk Into The World With The Gospel In Your Heart.

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.

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.

From The Moment We Claim The Truth Of Being The Beloved, We Are Faced With The Call To Become Who We Are.

There Is A Wonderful Story In The Gospel Of Luke (6:12-26). Jesus Went Up To The Mountain To Pray At Night; In The Morning He Came Down From The Mountain And Called His Twelve Apostles Around Him. In The Afternoon He Went Out On The Plain With Them To Preach The Good News And Heal The Sick. He Had Communion With God First, Then He Had Community, And Then He Went Out To Do The Work Of God. That's The Order Of Things.

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.

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.

God Wants You To Live For Others And To Live That Presence Well.

Live For Others

We Cannot Make It Rain But We Can See To It That The Rain Falls On Prepared Soil.

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.

Community Always Calls Us Back To Solitude, And Solitude Always Calls Us To Community. Community And Solitude, Both, Are Essential Elements Of Ministry And Witnessing.

Joy Is The Experience Of Knowing That You Are Unconditionally Loved.

Jesus Said Communion First, Community Comes Out Of That, And Out Of Community, Ministry.

As A General Remark, I Would Say We Must Move From The Moral To The Mystical Life.

Lifting Our Cup Means Sharing Our Life So We Can Celebrate It. When We Truly Believe We Are Called To Lay Down Our Lives For Our Friends, We Must Dare To Take The Risk To Let Others Know What We Are Living.

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.

Forgiveness Changes The Way We Remember. It Converts The Curse Into A Blessing. Forgiveness Indeed Heals Memories . . .

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

What Makes Us Human Is Not Our Mind But Our Heart, Not Our Ability To Think But Our Ability To Love.

In 1970 I Felt So Lonely That I Could Not Give; Now I Feel So Joyful That Giving Seems Easy. I Hope That The Day Will Come When The Memory Of My Present Joy Will Give Me The Strength To Keep Giving Even When Loneliness Gnaws At My Heart.

To Forgive Another From The Heart Is An Act Of Liberation. We Set That Person Free From The Negative Bonds That Exist Between Us. As Long As We Do Not Forgive We Pull Them With Us, Or Worse, As A Heavy Load. The Great Temptation Is To Cling In Anger To Our Enemies & Then Define Ourselves As Being Offended & Wounded By Them. Forgiveness, Therefore, Liberates Not Only The Other But Also Ourselves. It Is The Way To The Freedom Of The Children Of God.

One Of The Remarkable Qualities Of The Story Is That It Creates Space. We Can Dwell In A Story, Walk Around, Find Our Own Place. The Story Confronts But Does Not Oppress; The Story Inspires But Does Not Manipulate. The Story Invites Us To An Encounter, A Dialogue, A Mutual Sharing. As Long As We Have Stories To Tell To Each Other There Is Hope. As Long As We Can Remind Each Other Of The Lives Of Men And Women In Whom The Love Of God Becomes Manifest, There Is Reason To Move Forward To New Land In Which New Stories Are Hidden.

If You Feel Loved, You Can Do A Thousand Things. If You Feel Rejected, Everything Becomes A Problem.

Patience Asks Us To Live The Moment To The Fullest, To Be Completely Present To The Moment, To Taste The Here And Now, To Be Where We Are.

Live In The Moment

Where Are You Getting Your Affection? Who's Touching You? Who's Holding You? Who Makes You Feel Alive? Who Says, "you Are A Beautiful Person, You Are The Beloved Of God, Don't Forget It"? That's An Important Discipline.

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.

Somewhere We Know That Without Silence, Words Lose Their Meaning.

Distance Friendship

Inspirational Long Distance Relationship

Reading With Children Is An Enormous Gift To Them. It's A Great Honor To Invite Children To Read With Adults.

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

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.

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.

Friendship And Love Are Impossible Without A Mutual Vulnerability.

Love And Friendship

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.

One Of The Tragedies Of Our Life Is That We Keep Forgetting Who We Are

Now I Wonder Whether I Have Sufficiently Realized That During All This Time God Has Been Trying To Find Me, To Know Me, And To Love Me. The Question Is Not 'how Am I To Find God?' But 'how Am I To Let Myself Be Found By Him?' The Question Is Not 'how Am I To Love God?' But 'how Am I To Let Myself Be Loved By God?'

Often We Come Home From A Sharing Session With A Feeling That Something Precious Has Been Taken Away From Us Or That Holy Ground Has Been Trodden Upon.

Waiting Is A Dry Desert Between Where We Are And Where We Want To Be. (finding My Way Home)

Of One Thing I Am Sure. Complaining Is Self-perpetuating And Counterproductive. Whenever I Express My Complaints In The Hope Of Evoking Pity And Receiving The Satisfaction I So Much Desire, The Result Is Always The Opposite Of What I Tried To Get. A Complainer Is Hard To Live With, And Very Few People Know How To Respond To The Complaints Made By A Self-rejecting Person. The Tragedy Is That, Often, The Complaint, Once Expressed, Leads To That Which Is Most Feared: Further Rejection.

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.

Forgiveness Is The Name Of Love Practiced Among People Who Love Poorly. The Hard Truth Is That All People Love Poorly. We Need To Forgive And Be Forgiven Every Day, Every Hour Increasingly. That Is The Great Work Of Love Among The Fellowship Of The Weak That Is The Human Family.

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

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.

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

Prayer Is The Way To Both The Heart Of God And The Heart Of The World - Precisely Because They Have Been Joined Through The Suffering Of Jesus Christ Praying Is Letting One's Own Heart Become The Place Where The Tears Of God's Children Merge And Become Tears Of Hope.

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

The Art Of Living Is To Enjoy What We Can See And Not Complain About What Remains In The Dark.

Becoming The Beloved Is Pulling The Truth Revealed To Me From Above Down Into The Ordinariness Of What I Am, In Fact, Thinking Of, Talking About And Doing From Hour To Hour.

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.

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.

When Everything Is Dark, When We Are Surrounded By Despairing Voices, When We Do Not See Any Exits, Then We Can Find Salvation In A Remembered Love, A Love Which Is Not Simply A Recollection Of A Bygone Past But A Living Force Which Sustains Us In The Present. Through Memory, Love Transcends The Limits Of Time And Offers Hope At Any Moment Of Our Lives.

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

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.

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.

The Church Is The Body Of Christ Fashioned By Baptism & The Eucharist.

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.

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.

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

Christian Life Is Not A Life Divided Between Times For Action And Times For Contemplation. No. Real Social Action Is A Way Of Contemplation, And Real Contemplation Is The Core Of Social Action.

Joy Does Not Simply Happen To Us. We Have To Choose Joy And Keep Choosing It Every Day.

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.

Jesus Didn't Say, 'blessed Are Those Who Care For The Poor.' He Said, 'blessed Are We Where We Are Poor, Where We Are Broken.' It Is There That God Loves Us Deeply And Pulls Us Into Deeper Communion With Himself.

Jesus' Whole Life And Mission Involve Accepting Powerlessness And Revealing In This Powerlessness The Limitlessness Of God's Love. Here We See What Compassion Means. It Is Not A Bending Toward The Underprivileged From A Privileged Position; It Is Not A Reaching Out From On High To Those Who Are Less Fortunate Below; It Is Not A Gesture Of Sympathy Or Pity For Those Who Fail To Make It In The Upward Pull. On The Contrary, Compassion Means Going Directly To Those People And Places Where Suffering Is Most Acute And Building A Home There.

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.

As Ministers Our Greatest Temptation Is Toward Too Many Words. They Weaken Our Faith And Make Us Lukewarm. But Silence Is A Sacred Discipline, A Guard Of The Holy Spirit.

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

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.

The Question Is Not: How Many People Take You Seriously? How Much Are You Going To Accomplish? Can You Show Some Results? But: Are You In Love With Jesus?

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

Forgiveness Changes The Way We Remember.

What Is Forgotten Cannot Be Healed, And That Which Cannot Be Healed Easily Becomes The Cause Of Greater Evil.

When You Are Still Young And Not Yet Adult, You Want To Hold Everything In Your Own Hands, But If You Have Your Hands Open Toward Prayer, You Are Able To Stretch Out Your Arms And Let Yourself Be Led Without Knowing Where. You Know Only The Freedom Which God's Breath Has Brought You Will Lead To New Life, Even If The Cross Is The Only Sign Of It You Can See.

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

Ministry Means The Ongoing Attempt To Put One's Own Search For God, With All The Moments Of Pain And Joy, Despair And Hope, At The Disposal Of Those Who Want To Join This Search But Do Not Know How.

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)

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

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.

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.

It Is Very Hard To Stay In Touch With Our True Identity Because Those Who Want Our Money, Our Time, And Our Energy Profit More From Our Insecurity And Fears Than From Our Inner Freedom.

The Members - Mentally Handicapped People Who Are Marginal In Society And Not Useful In An Economic Sense - Welcomed Me Into Their Lives. And I Was Loved, Not Because Of What S Doing But Because Of Who I Was.

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

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.'

L'arche Is Not A Service Institution Or A Group Home. It Is A Community That Exists To Reveal God's Love. Our People Are Given To The World To Tell Others About Peace And Forgiveness And Celebration, To Make Them Aware That In The Midst Of Their Brokenness, There Is Joy; In The Midst Of Their Wounded Nature, There Is Healing.

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.

[praying] Demands That You Take To The Road Again And Again, Leaving Your House And Looking Forward To A New Land For Yourself And Your [fellow Human]. This Is Why Praying Demands Poverty, That Is, The Readiness To Live A Life In Which You Have Nothing To Lose So That You Always Begin Afresh.

It Is Good To Have A Prayer On Your Lips Wherever You Go. There Are So Many Moments In Life When You Are Free To Pray. When You Are Waiting For The Cashier In The Supermarket, Getting Mad Because He Or She Doesn't Hurry, Say A Little Prayer: 'lord, Jesus Christ, Have Mercy On Me.' Take That Prayer With You Wherever You Go.

So I Am Praying While Not Knowing How To Pray. I Am Resting While Feeling Restless, At Peace While Tempted, Safe While Still Anxious, Surrounded By A Cloud Of Light While Still In Darkness, In Love While Still Doubting.

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.

There Is Nothing So Important In The Family As The Sacred Quality Of The Meal.

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.

Solitude Does Not Pull Us Away From Our Fellow Human Beings But Instead Makes Real Fellowship Possible.

Someday I Would Love To Write About Vincent Van Gogh - His Paintings And Letters Continue To Inspire Me Very Much. But It Remains Hard To Find The Time And Inner Rest To Write.

One Of The Main Tasks Of Theology Is To Find Words That Do Not Divide But Unite, That Do Not Create Conflict But Unity, That Do Not Hurt But Heal.

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.

Your Heart Is Greater Than Your Wounds.

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.

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