By prayer, community is created as well as expressed.
Interpretation
Prayer fosters a sense of community among individuals, both in its creation and expression.
Henri Nouwen emphasizes the role of prayer in bringing people together, stating that it not only creates a shared bond among individuals but also serves as a way to express that bond. Through collective prayer, individuals can cultivate a sense of belonging and strengthen their connections with one another.
In practice
In a church gathering, to highlight the importance of unity, one might say, 'By prayer, community is created as well as expressed, as we all come together in faith.'
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.
Then there were things-- epic, terrible things-- that he didn't tell her but skirted around, like caressing the edges of a wound, hesitant, testing for pain.
Never make a companion equal to a brother.
What was so extraordinary to me about going through this box of my mother's letters and diaries was meeting my mother not as my mother, but as a real person. And what breaks my heart is that I had no idea how self-aware she was and how protective of me she was.
The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
I do not think homosexuality is immoral.
I thought that by saying no and explaining my reasons my employer would abandon his social suggestions. However, to my regret, in the following few weeks, he continued to ask me out on several occasions
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