Friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual journey.
Interpretation
Friendship is essential to personal growth and spirituality.
In this quote, Henri Nouwen emphasizes the vital role that friendship plays in one's spiritual development. He suggests that relationships with others are foundational to understanding oneself and engaging with the deeper aspects of life, highlighting that connecting with friends nourishes the spirit and fosters personal growth.
In practice
In a speech about personal development, one might say, 'As Henri Nouwen beautifully expressed, friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual journey.'
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.
The best time to make friends is before you need them.
People of noble character are afraid of keeping friendship with dishonorable people. But people of discreditable character consider friendship with the dishonorable as a blood relationship.
To embrace the whole world in friendship is wisdom. This wisdom is not changeable like the flowers that bloom and fade.
Because our expression is imperfect we need friendship to fill up the imperfections.
Anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success.
When I first met him, he did not care if a friend did not fit into his world, because at that time his world had not been born yet.
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