Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.
Interpretation
Community is built when we prioritize others' needs over our own.
This quote emphasizes the essence of community as a collective bond formed through selflessness and mutual support. Henri Nouwen suggests that the strength of a community is rooted in the ability of individuals to care about and prioritize the interests of others, highlighting the importance of empathy and cooperation in fostering meaningful relationships.
In practice
In a speech about volunteer work, one could say, 'Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.'
The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. God loves us, not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love.
The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides in the immense sorrow that has gone before....our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering β for us. And calling us to share in Godβs suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept.
Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. (Finding My Way Home)
Becoming the beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour.
I have been treated better than I should have been---not by life in general nor by the machinery of things but by women.
Ah! The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women...merely adored.
I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them.
Only my books anoint me, and a few friends, those who reach into my veins.
Our people could not talk with these white-faced men, but they used signs which all people understand.
Even as people take pride in their national independence, we know we are becoming more and more interdependent.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.