A Spirituality of Living Quotes

“The word listen in Latin is audire. If we listen with full attention in which we are totally geared to listen, it’s called ob-audire, and that’s where the word obedience comes from. Jesus is the obedient one. That means he is total ear, totally open to the love of God. And if we are closed, and to the degree that we are closed, we are surdus. That is the Latin word for deaf. The more “deaf” we get, the more absurdus”
― Henri J. M. Nouwen, A Spirituality of Living: The Henri Nouwen Spirituality Series

“What counts in your life and mine is not successes but fruits. The fruits of our life are born often in our pain and in our vulnerability and in our losses.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, A Spirituality of Living

“Forgiveness is to allow the other person not to be God. Forgiveness says, “I know you love me, but you don’t have to love me unconditionally, because no human being can do that.” [...]

If we want other people to give us something that only God can give, we become a heavy burden. We say, “Love me!” and before we know it we become demanding and manipulative [...]

To forgive other people for being able to give us only a little love—that is a hard discipline.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, A Spirituality of Living

“If we do not know we are the beloved sons and daughters of God, we are going to expect someone in the community to make us feel that we are. We will expect someone to give us that perfect, unconditional love. They cannot.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, A Spirituality of Living

“Long before our father and mother, our brothers and sisters, our teachers, our church, or anyone else touched us in a loving or a wounding way—long before we were rejected by some person or praised by somebody else—that voice was there. “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3). That love was there before we were born and will be there after we die. A life of fifty, sixty, seventy, or a hundred years is just a little moment in which we have been given time to say, “Yes, I love you too.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, A Spirituality of Living