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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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Henri Nouwen
Age: 64 †
Born: 1932
Born: January 24
Died: 1996
Died: September 21
Catholic Priest
Presbyter
Priest
Psychologist
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen
Appears
Tension
Distance
Dissolved
Beyond
Closeness
Happy
Intimacy
Fear
Horizon
Way
Medium
Mediums

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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The world is evil only when you become its slave.
Henri Nouwen
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What once seemed such a curse has become a blessing. All the agony that threatened to destroy my life now seems like the fertile ground for greater trust, stronger hope, and deeper love.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
Henri Nouwen
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Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.
Henri Nouwen
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The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it
Henri Nouwen
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The real 'work' of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
Henri Nouwen
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Our glory is hidden in our pain, if we allow God to bring the gift of himself in our experience of it.
Henri Nouwen
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Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.
Henri Nouwen
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His (Christ's) appearance in our midst has made it undeniably clear that changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross.
Henri Nouwen
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I choose L'Arche L'Arche chooses me. I would be dead if I weren't here. I need people to love me and care for me.
Henri Nouwen
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Simply being with someone is difficult because it asks of us that we share in the other's vulnerability, enter with him or her into the experience of weakness and powerlessness, become part of the uncertainty, and give up control and self-determination.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
Henri Nouwen
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We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with him and him alone. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds only with a singleminded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature.
Henri Nouwen
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The joy that compassion brings is one of the best-kept secrets of humanity. It is a secret known only to a very few people, a secret that has to be rediscovered over and over again.
Henri Nouwen
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In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.
Henri Nouwen
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a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.
Henri Nouwen
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Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.
Henri Nouwen
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Silence is a very concrete, practical, and useful discipline in all our ministerial tasks. It can be seen as a portable cell taken with us from the solitary place into the midst of our ministry. Silence is solitude practiced in action.
Henri Nouwen
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If you meet God in solitude, you discover the God you meet is the God who embraces all people.
Henri Nouwen