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242f8a6
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In the Gospels, there are many examples of Jesus not giving a direct answer to questions put to him by his disciples and others. (For example, the mother of James and John asks whether her two sons might sit one at the right hand and the other at the left hand of Jesus in his kingdom, and Jesus responds, "Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" [Matt. 20:20-23].) He does this not because he has no patience with them but bec..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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1a2e991
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Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is 'unceasing.' Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings, and fears. Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of our unceasin..
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prayer
thinking
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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76b1833
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A door opens to me. I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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c322698
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Remember, you are held safe. You are loved. You are protected. You are in communion with God and with those whom God has sent you. What is of God will last. It belongs to the eternal life. Choose it, and it will be yours.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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41de0ee
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To be able to enjoy fully the many good things the world has to offer, we must be detached from them. To be detached does not mean to be indifferent or uninterested. It means to be non-possessive. Life is a gift to be grateful for and not a property to cling to. A non-possessive life is a free life. But such freedom is only possible when we have a deep sense of belonging. To whom then do we belong? We belong to God, and the God to whom we b..
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god
non-possessive
detachment
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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c3bc95c
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The many contradictions in our lives - such as being home while feeling homeless, being busy while feeling bored, being popular while feeling lonely, being believers while feeling many doubts - can frustrate, irritate, and even discourage us. They make us feel that we are never fully present. Every door that opens for us makes us see how many more doors are closed. But there is another response. These same contradictions can bring us into t..
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god
paradox
longing
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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df28241
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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.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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6a124e0
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We often say, "I am not very happy. I am not content with the way my life is going. I am not really joyful or peaceful. But I don't know how things can be different, and I guess I have to be realistic and accept my life as it is." It is this mood of resignation that prevents us from actively naming our reality, articulating our experience, and moving more deeply into the life of the Spirit."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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2dc624c
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Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at that point of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God's Spirit dwells and there the great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart, because there we stand before the face of the Lord, all-seeing, with us.
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prayer
holy-spirit
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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58638a3
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As soon as I recognized the difference between the two hands of the father, a new world of meaning opened up for me. The Father is not simply a great patriarch. He is mother as well as father. He touches the son with a masculine hand and a feminine hand. He holds, and she caresses. He confirms and she consoles. He is, indeed, God, in whom both manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood, are fully present. That gentle caressing right h..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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3e55a42
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Adam was sent to bring Good News to the world. It was his mission, as it was the mission of Jesus. Adam was--very simply, quietly, and uniquely--there! He was a person, who by his very life announced the marvelous mystery of our God: I am precious, beloved, whole, and born of God. Adam bore silent witness to this mystery, which has nothing to do with whether or not he could speak, walk, or express himself, whether or not he made money, had ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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40a6c24
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This cry for mercy is possible only when we are willing to confess that somehow, somewhere, we ourselves have something to do with our losses. Crying for mercy is a recognition that blaming God, the world, or others for our losses does not do full justice to the truth of who we are. At the moment we are willing to take responsibility, even for the pain we didn't cause directly, blaming is connected into an acknowledgement of our own role in..
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loss
mercy
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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b5e6f41
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The measure of your solitude is the measure of your capacity for communion.
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solitude
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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2c52726
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I am less likely to deny my suffering when I learn how God uses it to mold me and draw me closer to him. I will be less likely to see my pains as interruptions to my plans and more able to see them as the means for God to make me ready to receive him. I let Christ live near my hurts and distractions.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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ee09bf0
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When I look through God's eyes at my lost self and discover God's joy at my coming home, then my life may become less anguished and more trusting.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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5f9e3cc
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But human withdrawal is a very painful and lonely process, because it forces us to face directly our own condition in all its beauty as well as misery.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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bee037b
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Celebration belongs to God's Kingdom. God not only offers forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing, but wants to lift up these gifts as a source of joy for all who witness them. In all three of the parables which Jesus tells to explain why he eats with sinners, God rejoices and invites others to rejoice with him. "Rejoice with me," the shepherd says, "I have found my sheep that was lost." "Rejoice with me," the woman says, "I have found the..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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6ccbf6f
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We will encounter great obstacles and splendid views, long dry deserts and shadow-rich trees. We will have to fight against those who try to attack and rob us. We will also make wonderful friends. We will often wonder if we will ever make it, but one day we will see coming to us the One who has been waiting for all eternity to welcome us home.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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0bc8101
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Percayalah bahwa pada suatu saat cinta akan menaklukkan dirimu sehingga bagian dirimu yang paling menakutkan sekalipun akan membiarkan cinta mengusir semua ketakutanmu
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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a8ced17
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Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people's response to your experience of abandonment, the more you will feel exposed to ridicule. You have to close yourself to the outside world so you can enter your own heart and the heart of God through your pain. God will send to you the people with whom you can share your anguish,..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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16f3621
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Living out this spiritual fatherhood requires the radical discipline of being home. As a self-rejecting person always in search of affirmation and affection, I find it impossible to love consistently without asking for something in return. But the discipline is precisely to give up wanting to accomplish this myself as a heroic feat. To claim for myself spiritual fatherhood and the authority of compassion that belongs to it, I have to let th..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Thus, our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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7523cf6
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I witness many signs of hope. I don't have to wait until all is well, but I can celebrate every little hint of the Kingdom that is at hand.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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fe571b1
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Community, then, cannot grow out of loneliness, but comes when the person who begins to recognize his or her belovedness greets the belovedness of the other. The God alive in me greets the God resident in you. When people can cease having to be for us everything, we can accept the fact they may still have a gift for us. They are partial reflections of the great love of God, but reflections nevertheless. We see that gift precisely and only o..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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178d4d7
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Getting answers to my questions is not the goal of the spiritual life. Living in the presence of God is the greater call.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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8f6fc80
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To console does not mean to take away the pain but rather to be there and say, "You are not alone, I am with you. Together" --
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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ca6d164
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Often hell is portrayed as a place of punishment and heaven as a place of reward. But this concept easily leads us to think about God as either a policeman, who tries to catch us when we make a mistake and send us to prison when our mistakes become too big, or a Santa Claus, who counts up all our good deeds and puts rewards in our stockings at the end of the year. God, however, is neither a policeman nor a Santa Claus. God does not send us ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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16d6585
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Just as words lose their power when they are not born out of silence, so openness loses its meaning when there is no ability to be closed.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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3da6ac9
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By inviting God into our difficulties we ground life--even its sad moments--in joy and hope. When we stop grasping our lives we can finally be given more than we could ever grab for ourselves. And we learn the way to a deeper love for others.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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8a3069e
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Jesus' whole life and mission involve accepting powerlessness and revealing in this powerlessness the limitlessness of God's love.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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41fe7d3
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Isn't it important for your friends close by and far away to know the high cost of these insights? Wouldn't they find it a source of consolation to see that light and darkness, hope and despair, love and fear are never very far from each other, and that spiritual freedom often requires a fierce spiritual battle?
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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19d27dd
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Listening in the spiritual life is much more than a psychological strategy to help others discover themselves. In the spiritual life the listener is not the ego, which would like to speak but is trained to restrain itself, but the Spirit of God within us. When we are baptised in the Spirit - that is, when we have received the Spirit of Jesus as the breath of God breathing within us - that Spirit creates in us a sacred space where the other ..
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jesus
holy-spirit
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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ff70590
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Christian leadership is a dead-end street when nothing new is expected, when everything sounds familiar and when ministry has regressed to the level of routine.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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c5e9c1e
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You have to acknowledge where you are and affirm that place. You have to be willing to live your loneliness, your incompleteness, your lack of total incarnation fearlessly, and trust that God will give you the people to keep showing you the truth of who you are.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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cd3156a
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Still, as long as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain. You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, your pain would not exist. This might be partly true, but
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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207c6ce
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Christ invites us to remain in touch with the many sufferings of every day and to taste the beginning of hope and new life right there, where we live amid our hurts and pains and brokenness.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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cdc27db
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Mourning our losses is the first step away from resentment and toward gratitude. The tears of our grief can soften our hardened hearts and open us to the possibility to say "thanks."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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3ed1ebc
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there are many other voices, voices that are loud, full of promises and very seductive. These voices say, "Go out and prove that you are worth something." Soon after Jesus had heard the voice calling him the Beloved, he was led to the desert to hear those other voices. They told him to prove that he was worth love in being successful, popular, and powerful. Those same voices are not unfamiliar to me. They are always there and, always, they ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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96597ee
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When spirituality becomes spiritualization, life in the body becomes carnality. When ministers and priests live their ministry mostly in their heads and relate to the Gospel as a set of valuable ideas to be announced, the body quickly takes revenge by screaming loudly for affection and intimacy. Christian leaders are called to live the Incarnation, that is, to live in the body, not only in their own bodies but also in the corporate body of ..
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practicing-faith
incarnation
holy-spirit
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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7b0c0be
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Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to be grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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a23e315
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Joy and resentment cannot coexist.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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6b3bcd6
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Joy never denies the sadness, but transforms it to a fertile soil for more joy.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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97d7227
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People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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c25781e
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To be bored, therefore, does not mean that we have nothing to do, but that we question the value of the things we are so busy doing. The great paradox of our time is that many of us are busy and bored at the same time.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |