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To live in the present, we must deeply believe that what is most important is in the here and now.

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
Present
Live
Must
Important
Believe
Deeply

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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Live, work, and travel with handicapped people, so I can stay close to them. But since I am often busy with many things, it's a constant struggle to keep the handicapped members of our community in the center of my life.
Henri Nouwen
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Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
Henri Nouwen
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While my friend always spoke about the sun, I kept speaking about the clouds, until one day I realized that it was the sun that allowed me to see the clouds.
Henri Nouwen
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Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.
Henri Nouwen
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Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.
Henri Nouwen
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As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their right place.
Henri Nouwen
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The third discipline is community. Whom do you choose as your companions? Whom do you choose to be friends with, to live with? Are they people who love you, and care for you, and nurture you?
Henri Nouwen
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Our society is so fragmented, our family lives so sundered by physical and emotional distance, our friendships so sporadic, our intimacies so 'in-between' things and often so utilitarian, that there are few places where we can feel truly safe.
Henri Nouwen
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When we give generously, with an abundance mentality, what we give away will multiply.
Henri Nouwen
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Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away.
Henri Nouwen
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Writing is not just a job. It helps me to pray. It's a way of being.
Henri Nouwen
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As long as we relate to the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the fields and the oceans as properties which we can manipulate according to our real or fabricated needs, nature remains opaque, and does not reveal to us its true being.
Henri Nouwen
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Obviously a child can never conceive solitude if his parents aren't living it somewhere themselves. I don't mean that to be alone you have to get down on your knees for an hour in a yoga posture.
Henri Nouwen
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Although many, we might even say most, strangers in this world become easily the victim of a fearful hostility, it is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings.
Henri Nouwen
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Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering end up disconnecting our suffering from God's suffering for us. The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through.
Henri Nouwen
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Our lives are unique stones in the mosaic of human existence -- priceless and irreplaceable.
Henri Nouwen
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The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.
Henri Nouwen
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When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.
Henri Nouwen
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Gratitude flows from the recognition that who we are and what we have are gifts to be received and shared.
Henri Nouwen
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You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
Henri Nouwen