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The "distant country" is the world in which everything considered holy at home is disregarded."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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db9fc4b
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There is great pain and suffering in the world. But the pain hardest to bear is your own.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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d006e2a
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In our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic security but our very identity is endangered. This explains the great fear with which many people face their retirement. After all, who are we when we no longer have an occupation?
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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bc1562a
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When you speak to others about your pain without fully owning it, you expect something from them that they cannot give.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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7f0f803
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All these "ifs" fill our minds with anxious thoughts and make us wonder constantly what to do and what to say in case something should happen in the future. Much, if not most, of our suffering is connected with these preoccupations. Possible career changes, possible family conflicts, possible illnesses, possible disasters, and a possible nuclear holocaust make us anxious, fearful, suspicious, greedy, nervous, and morose. They prevent us fro..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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28fe269
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Not only being occupied but also being preoccupied is highly encouraged by our society. The way in which newspapers, radio, and TV communicate their news to us creates an atmosphere of constant emergency. The excited voices of reporters, the predilection for gruesome accidents, cruel crimes, and perverted behavior, and the hour-to-hour coverage of human misery at home and abroad slowly engulf us with an all-pervasive sense of impending doom..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Each little step toward the center seemed like an impossible demand, a demand requiring me to let go one more time from wanting to be in control, to give up one more time the desire to predict life, to die one more time to the fear of not knowing where it all will lead, and to surrender one more time to a love that knows no limits. And still, I knew that I would never be able to live the great commandment to love without allowing myself to ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Unfulfilled BENEATH OUR WORRYING lives, however, something else is going on. While our minds and hearts are filled with many things, and we wonder how we can live up to the expectations imposed upon us by ourselves and others, we have a deep sense of unfulfillment. While busy with and worried about many things, we seldom feel truly satisfied, at peace, or at home. A gnawing sense of being unfulfilled underlies our filled lives. Reflecting a..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Boredom is often closely linked to resentment. When we are busy, yet wondering if our busyness means anything to anyone, we easily feel used, manipulated, and exploited. We begin to see ourselves as victims pushed around and made to do all sorts of things by people who do not really take us seriously as human beings. Then an inner anger starts to develop, an anger which in time settles into our hearts as an always fretting companion. Our ho..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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For Paul, praying is like breathing. It cannot be interrupted without mortal danger.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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When I fail, I feel jealous or resentful of these others. When I succeed, I worry that others will be jealous or resentful of me. I become suspicious or defensive and increasingly afraid that I won't get what I so much desire or will lose what I already have. Caught
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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02925f7
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He had become so disconnected from what gives life--family, friends, community, acquaintances, and even food--that he realized that death would be the natural next step. All at once he saw clearly the path he had chosen and where it would lead him; he understood his own death choice; and he knew that one more step in the direction he was going would take him to self-destruction.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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44aad3b
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To be lifted up into the divine life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit does not mean, however, to be taken out of the world. On the contrary, those who have entered into the spiritual life are precisely the ones who are sent into the world to continue and fulfill the work that Jesus began. The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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8f905d9
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The gospel proclaims human freedom and dignity more than human enslavement and depravity. What is needed is a balance of biblical values and emphasis on the empowering quality of the gospel. The spiritual values of humility, long suffering, endurance, and obedience are to be affirmed alongside self-reliance, freedom, proclamation, mission, and authority.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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But 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"
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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But when I forget that voice of the first unconditional love, then these innocent suggestions can easily start dominating my life and pull me into the "distant country." It"
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God's favor rests. I am so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my father's home and choose to dwell in a "distant country."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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There is a deep hole in your being, like an abyss. You will never succeed in filling that hole, because your needs are inexhaustible. You have to work around it so that gradually the abyss closes.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Long before you, mother, or I was born, the death of Christ was celebrated in the Eucharist. And it will be celebrated long after we have died. During our few years of conscious participation in the Eucharist, our lives and deaths become part of this ongoing proclamation of the life and death of Christ. Therefore I dare to say that every time I celebrate the Eucharist and every time you receive the body and blood of Christ, we remember not ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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619589d
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coming home" meant, for me, walking step by step toward the One who awaits me with open arms and wants to hold me in an eternal embrace. I"
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Coming home and staying there where God dwells, listening to the voice of truth and love, that was, indeed, the journey I most feared because I knew that God was a jealous lover who wanted every part of me all the time. When would I be ready to accept that kind of love?
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Whatever happens to me in life, I must believe that somewhere, In the mess or madness of it all, There is a sacred potential--
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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I know now that I have to speak from eternity into time, from the lasting joy into the passing realities of our short existence in this world, from the house of love into the houses of fear, from God's abode into the dwellings of human beings. I
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The owner of the vineyard, after having sent in vain several stewards to collect his share of the harvest, decides to send "his beloved son." The tenants recognize that he is the heir and kill him to obtain the inheritance for themselves. This is the picture of the true son who obeys his father, not as a slave, but as the Beloved, and fulfills the will of the Father in full unity with him."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Often we are preoccupied with the question "How can we be witnesses in the Name of Jesus? What are we supposed to say or do to make people accept the love that God offers them?" These questions are expressions more of our fear than of our love. Jesus shows us the way of being witnesses. He was so full of God's love, so connected with God's will, so burning with zeal for God's Kingdom, that he couldn't do other than witness. Wherever he went..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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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.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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People we meet, some great in the eyes of the world and some almost invisible to the larger society, are often conduits of God's wisdom.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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O Lord, I will not bind you with my own limited and limiting ideas and feelings. You can do so many things with me, things that might seem totally impossible to me. I want at least to remain open to the free movement of your Spirit in my life. Why do I keep saying to myself: "I will never be a saint. I will never be able to overcome my impulses and desires." If I keep saying that, I might prevent you from healing and touching me deeply. O L..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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3bfc2ed
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For a Christian is only a Christian when he unceasingly asks critical questions of the society in which he lives and continuously stresses the necessity for conversion, not only of the individual but also of the world.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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25355ca
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On the one hand the younger son realizes that he has lost the dignity of his sonship, but at the same time that sense of lost dignity makes him also aware that he is indeed the son who had dignity to lose," (pp. 49)."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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In Christ we live as God's beloved before we were born and after we have died; all the circumstances in between will not negate that. Jean
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Jesus says to Nicodemus, "though the light has come into the world, people have preferred darkness to the light" (John 3:19). In me I can feel this strange preference for the darkness. It seems as if I resist coming into the light and enjoy staying in my self-made darkness. Jesus offers the light, the truth, the life coming from above. He makes it clear that God wants to pull me away from the darkness; he wants to offer me a solid love to d..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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truly accepting love, forgiveness, and healing is often much harder than giving it.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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a807202
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When we see ourselves in a relationship of love with God, there is always something of a lover's dilemma, a struggle to give and receive, to trust and obey the call.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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They ask only one question: "what is pleasing to the Spirit of God?" And as soon as they have heard the sound of the Spirit in the silence and solitude of their hearts, they follow its promptings even if it upsets their friends, disrupts their environment, and confuses their admirers."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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82c1f6d
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I encourage you to make a similar commitment to spending time alone with God each day for prayer and meditation. Biblical meditation is a traditional method of solitary prayer. By selecting a particular scripture verse from the gospel reading for the day, or a favourite psalm, or a sentence from a letter from Paul, you can create a safe wall around your heart that will allow you to pay attention.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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62b5de1
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I wonder if the greatest temptation is self-rejection. Could it be that beneath all the lures to greed, lust, and success rests a great fear of never being enough or not being lovable?
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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014936d
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Just as a whole world of beauty can be discovered in one flower, so the great grace of God can be tasted in one small moment Just as no great travels are necessary to see the beauty of creation, so no great ecstasies are needed to discover the love of God.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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66a2fbf
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The great movement of the spiritual life is from a deaf, nonhearing life to a life of listening.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Dorotheus writes: "Don't look for the affection of your neighbor. He who looks for it is troubled when he does not get it. You yourself, however, have to give witness to the love for your neighbor and to offer him rest, and thus you will bring your neighbor to love."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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3557295
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The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8 NRSV). To be born of the Spirit is to step into a freedom that we never imagined before. It is to trust that the Spirit"
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Much of our ministry is pervaded with judgments. Often quite unconsciously we classify our people as very good, good, neutral, bad, and very bad. These judgments influence deeply the thoughts, words, and actions of our ministry. Before we know it, we fall into the trap of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Those whom we consider lazy, indifferent, hostile, or obnoxious we treat as such, forcing them in this way to live up to our own views. And s..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Our Wordy World OVER THE LAST few decades we have been inundated by a torrent of words. Wherever we go we are surrounded by words: words softly whispered, loudly proclaimed, or angrily screamed; words spoken, recited, or sung; words on records, in books, on walls, or in the sky; words in many sounds, many colors, or many forms; words to be heard, read, seen, or glanced at; words which flicker off and on, move slowly, dance, jump, or wiggle...
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |