henri nouwen quotes - reaching out: three movements of the spiritual life
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Life changing quotes from Henri Nouwen's book Reaching Out: Three Movements of the Spiritual LifeTRANSCRIPT
Meaningful Quotes Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
By Henri J. M. Nouwen
“…I have read many studies about spirituality and the spiritual life; I have listened to many lectures, spoken with many spiritual guides and visited may religious communities. I have learned much, but the time has come to realize that neither parents nor teachers nor counselors can do much more than offer a free and friendly place where one has to discover his own lonely way…the time seems to have come when I can no longer stand back with the remark, “Some say…others say,” but have to respond to the question, “But what do you say?” (p 8) “If some are still dominated by their former bad habits, and yet can teach by mere words, let them teach…For perhaps, being put to shame by their own words, they will eventually begin to practice what they teach.” – John of the Ladder (p 9)
“When we do not protect with great care our own inner mystery, we will never be able to form community.” (p 20) “…words lose their power when they are not born out of silence.” (p 21) “Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone. Even as the strings of a lute are alone Though they quiver with the same music. Stand together yet not too near together For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress Grow no in each other’s shadow.” – Kahlil Gibran (p 22) “Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.” – Anonymous (p 24) “A man or woman who ahs developed this solitude of the heart is no longer pulled apart by the most divergent stimuli of the surrounding world but is able to perceive and understand this world from a quiet inner center.” (p 25) “You are looking outward and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself.” – Rainer Maria Rilke (p 27) “…in our world we are constantly pulled away from our innermost self and encouraged to look for answers instead of listening to the questions.” (p 28)
“What is going on in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love.” – Rilke (p 28) “Every day, every act is an island, washed by time and space and has an island’s completion.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh (p 28) “Love…consist in this, that two solitudes protect and border and sluate each other.” – Rilke (p 31) “I feel we are all islands in a common sea.” -‐ Anne Morrow Lindbergh (p 31) “A real spiritual life…makes us so alert and aware of the world around us, that all that is and happens becomes part of our contemplation and meditation and invites us to a free and fearless response.” (p 35) “…our interruptions are in fact our opportunities…they are challenges to an inner response by which growth takes place and through which we come to the fullness of being.” (p 37) “Then indeed we can break out of the prison of an anonymous series of events and listen to the God of history who speaks to us in the center of our solitude and respond to his ever new call for conversion.” (p 37) “In the solitude of the heart we can truly listen to the pains of the world because there we can recognize them not as strange and unfamiliar pains, but as pains that are indeed our own.” (p 41)
“The paradox indeed is that the beginning of healing is in the solidarity with the pain. In our solution-‐oriented society it is more important than ever to realize that wanting to alleviate pain without sharing it is like wanting to save a child from a burning house without the risk of being hurt. It is in solitude that this compassionate solidarity takes its shape.” (p 43) “Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines…the paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free…[it] is not a subtle invitation to adopt the life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.” (p 51) “Our worries and concerns are expression of our inability to leave unresolved questions unresolved and open-‐ended situations open-‐ended.” (p 53) “Preoccupations are our fearful ways to keeping things the same, and it often seems that we prefer a bad certainty to a good uncertainty…Instead of facing the challenge of new worlds opening themselves for us, and struggling in the open field, we hide behind the walls of our concerns holding on to the familiar life items we have collected in the past.” (p 53) “We cannot change the world by a new plan, project or idea. We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice and proposals, but we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, to lay aside their occupations and preoccupations, and to listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own center.” (p 54)
“We will never believe that we have anything to give unless there is someone who is able to receive. Indeed, we discover our gifts in the eyes of the receiver.” (p 61) “Many of us have lost our sensitivity for our own history and experience our life as a capricious series of events over which we have no control. When all our attention is drawn away from ourselves and absorbed by what happens around us, we become strangers to ourselves, people without a story to tell or to follow up.” (p 67) “Our most important question as healers is not, ‘What to say or to do?’ but, ‘How to develop enough inner space where the story can be received?’ Healing is the humble but also very demanding task of creating and offering a friendly empty space where strangers can reflect on their pain and suffering without fear, and find the confidence that makes them look for new ways right in the center of their confusion.” (p 68) “When we say, ‘You can be my guest if you believe what I believe, think the way I think and behave as I do,’ we offer love under a condition or for a price. This leads easily to exploitation, making hospitality into a business.” (p 69) “Once we have given up our desire to be fully fulfilled, we can offer emptiness to others. Once we have become poor, we can be a good host. It is indeed the paradox of hospitality that poverty makes a good host. Poverty is the inner disposition that allows us to take away our defenses and convert our enemies into friends. We can only perceive the stranger as an enemy as long as we have something to defend. But when we say, ‘Please enter-‐my house is your house, my joy is your joy, my sadness is your sadness and my life is your life,’ we have nothing to defend, since we have nothing to lose but all to give.” (p 73)
“Someone who is filled with ideas, concepts, opinions and convictions cannot be a good host. There is no inner space to listen, no openness to discover the gift of the other…The more mature we become the more we will be able to give up our inclination to grasp, catch, and comprehend the fullness of life and the more we will be ready to let life enter into us.” (p 74) “To prepare ourselves for service we have to prepare ourselves for an articulate not knowing, a docta ignorantia, a learned ignorance…We all want to be educated so that we can be in control of the situation and make things work according to our own need. But education to ministry is an education not to master God but to be mastered by God.” (p 74) “…the poverty of mind…demands the continual refusal to identify God with any concept, theory, document or event, thus preventing man or woman from becoming a fanatic sectarian or enthusiast, while allowing for an ongoing growth in gentleness and receptivity.” (p 75) “…real training for service asks for a hard and often painful process of self-‐emptying…Training for service is not a training to become rich but to become voluntarily poor; not to fulfill ourselves but to empty ourselves; not to conquer God but to surrender to his saving power…Our fulfillment is in offering emptiness, our usefulness in becoming useless, our power in becoming powerless.” (p 77) “…the most profound realities of life are the easiest victims of trivialization.” (p 81) “Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” – Simone Weil (p 91)