In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.
Interpretation
We have the opportunity to show a love that transcends divisions and heals conflicts.
Henri Nouwen’s quote emphasizes the possibility of embodying love in a fractured world filled with animosity and rivalry. It suggests that individuals can serve as examples of love that has the power to unite people and mend broken relationships, thereby fulfilling a meaningful and transformative role in society.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about community service to inspire people to engage in acts of love.
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.
It is time to put up a love-swing!_x000D_ Tie the body and then tie the mind so that they _x000D_ swing between the arms of the Secret One you love,_x000D_ Bring the water that falls from the clouds to your eyes,_x000D_ and cover yourself inside entirely with the shadow of night._x000D_ Bring your face up close to his ear,_x000D_ and then talk only about what you want deeply to happen.
We experience God to the extent to which we love, forgive, and focus on the good in others and ourselves.
Your happy songs bring to me the scent of Heaven. Please keep singing!
Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our other efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.
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