Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.
Interpretation
Generosity transforms fear into love, fostering positive connections.
This quote by Henri Nouwen highlights the powerful impact of generosity on our emotional state. By choosing to act selflessly and give to others, we shift away from feelings of fear and insecurity, embracing a mindset centered on love and compassion, which enhances our relationships and overall well-being.
In practice
In a speech about community service, I shared Nouwen's quote to emphasize the importance of generosity.
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.
A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.
The one who will be found in trial capable of great acts of love is ever the one who is always doing considerate small ones.
There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.
At some point in my life I'd honestly hoped love would rescue me from the cold, drafty castle I lived in. But at another point, much earlier I think, I'd quietly begun to hope for nothing at all in the way of love, so as not to be disappointed. It works. It gets to be a habit.
You know, for me, the realization that two people should have the right to form a sacred union regardless of their gender was strengthened when I saw a performance of the play The Normal Heart in 1985. After feeling the love those two men had for each other, I dare anybody not to want them to get married by the end.
I'm writing mostly to thank you for living you eighty years and to tell you I love you and think of you often.
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