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Time has to be converted, then, from chronos, mere chronological time, to kairos, a New Testament Greek word that has to do with opportunity, with moments that seem ripe for their intended purpose. Then, even while life continues to seem harried, while it continues to have hard moments, we say, "Something good is happening amid all this." We get glimpses of how God might be working out his purposes in our days. Time becomes not just somethi..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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64fb311
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When God looks at our world, God must weep. God must weep because the lust for power has entrapped and corrupted the human spirit. In the news and even in our families and ourselves we see that instead of gratitude there is resentment, instead of forgiveness there is revenge, instead of healing there is wounding, instead of compassion there is competition, instead of cooperation there is violence, and instead of love there is immense fear.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Our God is a God who cares, heals, guides, directs, challenges, confronts, corrects. To discern means first of all to listen to God, to pay attention to God's active presence, and to obey God's prompting, direction, leadings, and guidance.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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When you can look into the face of another human being and you have enough light in you to recognize your brother or you sister. Until then it is night, and darkness is still with us.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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They discover that there are people who heal each other's wounds, forgive each other's offenses, share their possessions, foster the spirit of community, celebrate the gifts they have received, and live in constant anticipation of the full manifestation of God's glory.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Jesus, the Son of God, is the man of sorrows, but also the man of complete joy.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Our individual as well as communal lives are so deeply molded by our worries about tomorrow that today hardly can be experienced.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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c0b3c1e
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When Jesus speaks about the world, he is very realistic. He speaks about wars and revolutions, earthquakes, plagues and famines, persecution and imprisonment, betrayal, hatred and assassinations. There is no suggestion at all that these signs of the world's darkness will ever be absent. But still, God's joy can be ours in the midst of it all. It is the joy of belonging to the household of God whose love is stronger than death and who empowe..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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45843c5
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As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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I am beginning to experience that an unconditional, total love of God makes a very articulate, alert, and attentive love for the neighbor possible.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Community has little to do with mutual compatibility. Similarities in educational background, psychological make-up, or social status can bring us together, but they can never be the basis for community. Community is grounded in God, who calls us together, and not in the attractiveness of people to each other. There
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Action with and for those who suffer is the concrete expression of the compassionate life and the final criterion of being a Christian.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The joy at the dramatic return of the younger son in no way means that the elder son was less loved, less appreciated, less favored. The father does not compare the two sons. He loves them both with a complete love and expresses that love according to their individual journeys.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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God is the hub of the wheel of life. The closer we come to God the closer we come to each other. The basis of community is not primarily our ideas, feelings, and emotions about each other but our common search for God. When we keep our minds and hearts directed toward God, we will come more fully "together."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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729ee12
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Spiritual greatness has nothing to do with being greater than others. It has everything to do with being as great as each of us can be. True sanctity is precisely drinking our own cup and trusting that by thus fully claiming our own, irreplaceable journey, we can become a source of hope for many.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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50b9f1f
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There is a place far down that is like a turbulent river, and that place frightens you. But do not fear. One day it will be quiet and peaceful. You have to keep moving, as you are doing. Live a faithful, disciplined life, a life that gives you a sense of inner strength, a life in which you can receive more and more of the love that comes to you. Wherever there is real love for you, take it and be strengthened by it. As your body, heart, and..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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A large part of the father's life had been spent waiting. He could not force his younger son to come home or his older son to let go of his resentments. Only they themselves could take the initiative to return.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Therefore every real revolutionary is challenged to be a mystic at heart, and he who walks the mystical way is called to unmask the illusory quality of human society.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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If the urge to be entertained so much, to travel so much, to buy so much, and to arm ourselves so much no longer motivated our behavior, could our society as it is today still function?
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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What is our task in this world as children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus? Our task is reconciliation. Wherever we go we see divisions among people--in families, communities, cities, countries, and continents. All these divisions are tragic reflections of our separation from God. The truth that all people belong together as members of one family under God is seldom visible. Our sacred task is to reveal that truth in the reality of..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Community thus is obedience practiced together. The question is not simply, "Where does God lead me as an individual person who tries to do his will?" More basic and more significant is the question, "Where does God lead us as a people?" This"
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Jesus is deeply connected to the earth on which he walks. He observes the forces of nature, learns from them, teaches about them, and reveals that the God of Creation is the same God who sent him to give good news to the poor, sight to the blind, and freedom to the prisoners. He walks from village to village, sometimes alone and sometimes with others; as he walks, he meets the poor, the beggars, the blind, the sick, the mourners, and those ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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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.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The leap of faith always means loving without expecting to be loved in return, giving without wanting to receive, inviting without hoping to be invited, holding without asking to be held.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The younger son's return takes place in the very moment that he reclaims his sonship, even though he has lost all the dignity that belongs to it. In fact, it was the loss of everything that brought him to the bottom line of his identity. He hit the bedrock of his sonship. In retrospect, it seems that the prodigal had to lose everything to come into touch with the ground of his being.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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God has created you and me with a heart that only God's love can satisfy. And every other love will be partial, will be real, but limited, will be painful. And if we are willing to let the pain prune us, to give us a deeper sense of our belovedness, then we can be as free as Jesus and walk on this world and proclaim God's first love, wherever we go.2
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The parable that Rembrandt painted might well be called "The Parable of the Lost Sons." Not only did the younger son, who left home to look for freedom and happiness in a distant country, get lost, but the one who stayed home also became a lost man. Exteriorly he did all the things a good son is supposed to do, but, interiorly, he wandered away from his father. He did his duty, worked hard every day, and fulfilled all his obligations but be..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Since my visit to the Hermitage, I had become more aware of the four figures, two women and two men, who stood around the luminous space where the father welcomed his returning son. Their way of looking leaves you wondering how they think or feel about what they are watching. These bystanders, or observers, allow for all sorts of interpretations. As I reflect on my own journey, I become more and more aware of how long I have played the role..
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prodigal-son
rembrandt
observer
outsider
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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b3e1cce
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You feel overwhelmed by distractions, fantasies, the disturbing desire to throw yourself into the world of pleasure. But you know already that you will not find there an answer to your deepest question. Nor does the answer lie in rehashing old events, or in guilt or shame. All of that makes you dissipate yourself and leave the rock on which your house is built.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Becoming a child is living toward a second innocence: not the innocence of the newborn infant, but the innocence that is reached through conscious choices.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Many consumerist economies stay afloat by manipulating the low self-esteem of their consumers and by creating spiritual expectations through material means.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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now I realize that the real sin is to deny God's first love for me, to ignore my original goodness. Because without claiming that first love and that original goodness for myself, I lose touch with my true self and embark on the destructive search among the wrong people and in the wrong places for what can only be found in the house of my Father.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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God rejoices when one repentant sinner returns. Statistically that is not very interesting. But for God, numbers never seem to matter. Who knows whether the world is kept from destruction because of one, two, or three people who have continued to pray when the rest of humanity has lost hope and dissipated itself? From God's perspective, one hidden act of repentance, one little gesture of selfless love, one moment of true forgiveness is all ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Ignorance makes us look for acceptance where it cannot be expected, and makes us hope for changes where they cannot be found. Illusion makes us fight for a new world as if we could create and control it ourselves; it makes us judge our neighbors as if we had the final word. Ignorance and illusion keep us entangled in the world and cause suffering and sorrow. But the way of the heart leads to freedom. The spiritual life is a life in which we..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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she said, "Whether you are the younger son or the elder son, you have to realize that you are called to become the father."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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God does not love the younger son more than the elder. In the story the father goes out to the elder son just as he did to the younger, urges him to come in, and says, "My son, you are with me always, and all I have is yours."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Every time you reject yourself, you idealize others.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Without trust, I cannot let myself be found. Trust is that deep inner conviction that the Father wants me home. As long as I doubt that I am worth finding and put myself down as less loved than my younger brothers and sisters, I cannot be found. I have to keep saying to myself, "God is looking for you. He will go anywhere to find you. He loves you, he wants you home, he cannot rest unless he has you with him."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Rembrandt portrays the father as the man who has transcended the ways of his children. His own loneliness and anger may have been there, but they have been transformed by suffering and tears. His loneliness has become endless solitude, his anger boundless gratitude. This is who I have to become. I see it as clearly as I see the immense beauty of the father's emptiness and compassion. Can I let the younger and the elder son grow in me to the..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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e8d4fce
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Do you really want to be converted? Are you willing to be transformed? Or do you keep clutching your old ways of life with one hand while with the other you beg people to for help you change?
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The young man being embraced by the Father is no longer just one repentant sinner, but the whole of humanity returning to God. The broken body of the prodigal becomes the broken body of humanity, and the baby-like face of the returning child becomes the face of all suffering people longing to reenter the lost paradise. Thus Rembrandt's painting becomes more than the mere portrayal of a moving parable. It becomes the summary of the history o..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Both trust and gratitude require the courage to take risks because distrust and resentment, in their need to keep their claim on me, keep warning me how dangerous it is to let go of my careful calculations and guarded predictions.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Confronted here with the impossibility of self-redemption, I now understand Jesus' words to Nicodemus: "Do not be surprised when I say: 'You must be born from above.' " Indeed, something has to happen that I myself cannot cause to happen. I cannot be reborn from below; that is, with my own strength, with my own mind, with my own psychological insights. There is no doubt in my mind about this because I have tried so hard in the past to heal ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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89005ea
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Anger, resentment, jealousy, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonisms, and rivalries are the obvious signs that I have left home. And that happens quite easily. When I pay careful attention to what goes on in my mind from moment to moment, I come to the disconcerting discovery that there are very few moments during the day when I am really free from these dark emotions, passions and feelings. Constantly falling back into an old trap, b..
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jealousy
revenge
love
rivalry
hurt
resentment
lust
father
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |