The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society (Doubleday Image Book. an Image Book)

by Henri J.M. Nouwen

A life after death can only be thought of in terms of life before it, and nobody can dream of a new earth when there is no old earth to hold any promises. No form of immortality—neither the immortality through children nor the immortality through works, neither the immortality through nature nor the immortality in heaven—is able to help nuclear man project himself beyond the limitations of his human existence.

the choice is no longer between his world or a better world, but between no world or a new world.

Mysticism and revolution are two aspects of the same attempt to bring about radical change. No mystic can prevent himself from becoming a social critic, since in self-reflection he will discover the roots of a sick society. Similarly, no revolutionary can avoid facing his own human condition, since in the midst of his struggle for a new world he will find that he is also fighting his own reactionary fears and false ambitions.

The man who can articulate the movements of his inner life, who can give names to his varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering.

Thus the authority of compassion is the possibility of man to forgive his brother, because forgiveness is only real for him who has discovered the weakness of his friends and the sins of his enemy in his own heart and is willing to call every human being his brother.

The mystery of one man is too immense and too profound to be explained by another man. And still the question: “How could Mr. Harrison be led to tomorrow?” is a valid question. For one man needs another to live, and the deeper he is willing to enter into the painful condition which he and others know, the more likely it is that he can be a leader, leading his people out of the desert into the promised land.

no one can help anyone without becoming involved, without entering with his whole person into the painful situation, without taking the risk of becoming hurt, wounded or even destroyed in the process.

Few listen to a sermon which is intended to be applicable to everyone, but most pay careful attention to words born out of concern for only a few.

When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope. Through this common search, hospitality becomes community. Hospitality becomes community as it creates a unity based on the shared confession of our basic brokenness and on a shared hope.