Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don't need a lot of money to be happy--in fact, the opposite.
Jean VanierRead
When we love and respect people, revealing to them their value, they can begin to come out from behind the walls that protect them.
Interpretation
Loving and respecting others helps them recognize their own worth and fosters openness.
This quote emphasizes the transformative power of love and respect in human relationships. When we treat others with kindness and acknowledge their intrinsic value, we create a safe space for them to lower their defenses and expose their true selves. This openness can lead to deeper connections and personal growth.
In practice
A speaker at a community gathering sharing this quote to encourage compassion among members.
Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don't need a lot of money to be happy--in fact, the opposite.
One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.
We all know well that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel that they are incapable of doing things by themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.
True peace can rarely be imposed from the outside; it must be born within and between communities through meetings and dialogue and then carried outward.
In any case, community is not about perfect people. It is about people who are bonded to each other, each of whom is a mixture of good and bad, darkness and light, love and hate.
We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not saviours. We are simply a tiny sign, among thousands of others, that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable.
Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.
We have avoided in recent years talking openly and honestly about race out of fear that it will alienate and polarize. In my own view, itβs our refusal to deal openly and honestly with race that leads us to keep repeating these cycles of exclusion and division, and rebirthing a caste-like system that we claim weβve left behind
He loved her because it was his nature to do so, but there were times when he could not endure her love for him. There were times when it became nothing but pure idiot mystery.
Well, you never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people's lives. Yet from this fog his affection emerged--the best contacts are when one knows the obstacles and still wants to preserve a relation.
What if the idea of Mr. Right is completely false? What if there is no Mr. Wrong? What if every relationship-no matter how brief-contains a priceless lesson allowing you to grow and evolve into your grandest self?
It isn't silence you can cut with a knife any more, it's interchange of ideas. Intelligent discussion of practically everything is what is breaking up modern marriage.
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