Quotes from Henri J.M. Nouwen

Faith is precisely trusting that you who give gratuitously will receive gratuitously, but not necessarily from the person to whom you gave.

Are we really servants when we can become masters again once we think we have done our part or made our contribution? Are we really servants when we can say when, where, and how long we will give of our time and energy? Is service in a far country really an expression of servanthood when we keep enough money in the bank to fly home at any moment?

our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.

By slowly converting our loneliness into a deep solitude, we create that precious space where we can discover the voice telling us about our inner necessity—that is, our vocation.

God is there. God's light is there. God's forgiveness is there. God's boundless love is there.

Because life is very small, you can never see it happening. Have you ever seen a tree actually grow? Can you see a child grow? Growth is too gentle, too tender. Life is basically hidden.

When we live with a solitude of heart, we can listen with attention to the words and the worlds of others, but when we are driven by loneliness, we tend to select just those remarks and events that bring immediate satisfaction to our own craving needs.

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.

Does not all creativity ask for a certain encounter with our loneliness, and does not the fear of this encounter severely limit our possible self expression?

The few times, however, that we do obey our severe masters and listen carefully to our restless hearts, we may start to sense that in the midst of our sadness there is joy, that in the midst of our fears there is peace, that in the midst of our greediness there is the possibility of compassion and that indeed in the midst of our irking loneliness we can find the beginnings of a quiet solitude.

When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply.

A friend once wrote: "Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.

Whether I am the younger son or the elder son, God's only desire is to bring me home.

John Henry Newman views the visible world as a veil "so that all that exists or happens visibly, conceals and yet suggests, and above all serves, a greater system of persons, facts and events beyond itself."3

Truth does not mean an idea, concept, or doctrine, but the true relationship.

But as we come to God with our hurts—honestly, not superficially—something life changing can begin slowly to happen. We discover how God is the One who invites us to healing. We realize that any dance of celebration must weave both the sorrows and the blessings into a joyful step.

It is far from easy to believe that this is true. Often we go to good men and women with our problems in the secret hope that they will take our burden away from us and free us from our loneliness. Frequently the temporary relief they offer only leads to a stronger recurrence of the same pains when we are again by ourselves.

A young student reflecting on his own experience wrote recently: When loneliness is haunting me with its possibility of being a threshold instead of a dead end, a new creation instead of a grave, a meeting place instead of an abyss, then time loses its desperate clutch on me. Then I no longer have to live in a frenzy of activity, overwhelmed and afraid for the missed opportunity.

I've yet to meet anyone who has come closer to Jesus by forsaking the church.

In the end, a life of prayer is a life with open hands—a life where we need not be ashamed of our weaknesses but realize that it is more perfect for us to be led by the Other than to try to hold everything in our own hands.

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

We cannot see God in the other person. Only God in us can see God in the other person.

Together, Yet Not Too Near When we try to shake off our loneliness by creating a milieu without limiting boundaries, we may become entangled in a stagnating closeness.

I am called to enter into the inner sanctuary of my own being where God has chosen to dwell. The only way to that place is prayer, unceasing prayer, Many struggles and much pain can clear the way but I am certain that only unceasing prayer can let me enter it.