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Our tendency is to run from the painful realities or try to change them as soon as possible. But cure without care makes us into rulers, controllers, manipulators.

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
Care
Tendencies
Manipulators
Without
Painful
Manipulator
Trying
Soon
Controllers
Possible
Realities
Running
Rulers
Makes
Tendency
Reality
Cure
Change
Cures

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.
Henri Nouwen
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Aging does not need to be hidden or denied, but can be understood, affirmed and experienced as a process of growth by which the mystery of life is slowly revealed to us.
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Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.
Henri Nouwen
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When you have loved deeply, that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. That is the core message of Jesus.
Henri Nouwen
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In solitude we become aware that we were together before we came together and that life is not a creation of our will but rather an obedient response to the reality of our being united.
Henri Nouwen
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What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.
Henri Nouwen
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when the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.
Henri Nouwen
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When I could no longer cling to my normal supports I discovered that true support and real safety lie far beyond the structures of our world.
Henri Nouwen
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You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer - listening to the voice of the one who calls you the beloved.
Henri Nouwen
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That's prayer to let God's Word speak deep within you and tell you, You are my beloved. You don't have to take an eye for an eye. No, no you're too rich for that.
Henri Nouwen
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Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.
Henri Nouwen
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The university has become a place that prepares you for the fights in the world.
Henri Nouwen
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Real greatness is often hidden, humble, simple, and unobtrusive. It is not easy to trust ourselves and our actions without public affirmation. We must have strong self-confidence combined with deep humility.
Henri Nouwen
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The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing...that is a friend who cares.
Henri Nouwen
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If you believe you are the beloved of God, you need to spend time listening to his voice - period! You can't say, Yes God calls me the beloved, but I have to go out to do something now.
Henri Nouwen
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It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.
Henri Nouwen
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Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
Henri Nouwen
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I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
Henri Nouwen
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Feelings of guilt dominate our work as peacemakers we cannot last long. But when we have opened each other's eyes to the great human gifts among all people we can indeed make peacemaking a way of being.
Henri Nouwen
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I know that I have to move from speaking about Jesus to letting him speak within me, from thinking about Jesus to letting him think within me, from acting for and with Jesus to letting him act through me. I know the only way for me to see the world is to see it through his eyes.
Henri Nouwen