Quote

To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefor unloveable. Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain.

Jean Vanier

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Jean Vanier
Age: 90 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 10
Died: 2019
Died: May 7
Naval Officer
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Genève
Forget
Mental
Pain
Lonely
Death
Inner
Therefor
Feel
Taste
Unloved
Feels
Lose
Unwanted
People
Violence
Desperately
Loses
Illness
Wonder
Loneliness

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[Happiness] comes when we choose to be who we are, to be ourselves, at this present moment in our lives.
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The belly laugh is the best way to evacuate anguish.
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One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals.
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If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.
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All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.
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We can be seduced...by powerful political groups that promise more wealth and lower taxes. Those with power can use clever, psychological tricks and play upon our weaknesses and brokenness in order to attract us to their way of thinking. We can be manipulated into illusion.
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'Going home' is a journey to the heart of who we are, a place where we can be ourselves and welcome the reality of our beauty and our pain. From this acceptance of ourselves, we can accept others as they are and we can see our common humanity.
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A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift.
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Community begins in mystery and ends in administration. Leaders move away from people and into paper.
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Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: He who loves community destroys community he who loves the brethren builds community. A community is not an abstract ideal.
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Each person with his or her history of being accepted or rejected, with his or her past history of inner pain and difficulties in relationships, is different. But in each one there is a yearning for communion and belonging, but at the same time a fear of it. Love is what we most want, yet it is what we fear the most.
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Stop looking for peace. Give yourselves where you are. Stop looking at yourselves, look instead at your brothers and sisters in need. Ask how you can better love your brothers and sisters. Then you will find peace.
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I remember that throughout history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always...whenever you are in doubt that that is God's way - the way the world is meant to be. Think of that and then try to do His way.
Jean Vanier
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Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed.
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Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)
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Those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us
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Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness
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A tension or difficulty can signal the approach of a new grace of God. But it has to be looked at wisely and humanly.
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A community is only a community when the majority of its members are making the transition from 'the community for myself' to 'myself for the community'.
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...Individualistic material progress and the desire to gain prestige by coming out on top have taken over from the sense of fellowship, compassion and community. Now people live more or less on their own in a small house, jealously guarding their goods and planning to acquire more, with a notice on the gate that says, 'Beware of the Dog.
Jean Vanier