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 – for us. And calling us to share in God’s 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.
Rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love.
A strange, terrific force unlike anything I've ever experienced is sprouting in my heart, taking root there, growing. Shut up behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will--over and over.
Only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.
Then Aragorn stooped and looked in her face, and it was indeed white as a lily, cold as frost, and hard as graven stone. But he bent and kissed her on the brow, and called her softly, saying: 'Éowyn Éomund's daughter, awake! For your enemy has passed away!' - Aragorn & Éowyn
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings_x000D_ _x000D_ That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.
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