Our life is...a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment.
Interpretation
Life is a blend of both happiness and sorrow experienced simultaneously.
Henri Nouwen's quote reflects the complexity of human emotions, emphasizing that sadness and joy coexist in our daily lives. This interplay between contrasting feelings enriches our experiences and highlights the importance of embracing both emotions as integral aspects of life.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a reflective talk about life's ups and downs at a support group.
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.
We are not long-term beings. Not heroes of romances in many volumes. For one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort. We openly admit: our creations will be temporary. We shall have this as our aim: a gesture.
Adoption was such a positive alternative to abortion, a way to save one life and brighten two more: those of the adoptive parents.
The result of my life is no more than three words: I was raw, I became cooked, I was burnt.
don't let us get sick, don't let us get old, don't let us get stupid, alright? just make us be brave, and make us play nice, and let us be together tonight.
Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations.
fear life but don't die, your alone, everybody's alone, oh Cody Pomeray you can't win you can't lose all is ephemeral all is hurt
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