Intimacy Quotes

“The tendency exists to look for a solution to [loneliness] by establishing very demanding and often exhausting friendships. […] the stresses on many students are so intense that they often have inexhaustible needs for intimacy, and clinging friendships. But this is often encouraging the unrealistic fantasy that the true, real, faithful friend is somewhere waiting, able to take away all the feelings of frustration.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Intimacy

“The paradox is that he who has been taught to love everyone, in reality finds himself without any friends; that he who trained himself in mental prayer often is not able to be alone with himself. Having opened himself to every outsider, there is no room left for the insider. The walls of the intimate enclosure of his privacy crumble and there is no place left to be with himself. The priest who has given away so much of himself creates an inexhaustable need to be constantly with others in order to feel that he is a whole person.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Intimacy

“Being friendly to everybody, he very often has no friends for himself.
Always consulting and giving advice, he often has nobody to go to with his own pains and problems. [...]
Looking for acceptance, he tends to cling to his counselees [...]
In this way he […] never feels safe, is always on the alert, and finally finds himself terribly misunderstood and lonesome.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Intimacy

“I am not alone in the world but I share this world with others. To be able to live a healthy life in this world which judges me and asks me to play a role according to my physical identity, two things are necessary. First, that I must have my own inner privacy where I can hide from the face of the challenging world; and secondly, I must establish a hierarchy of relationships with this same world. In the inner circle of my life I find him or her who is closest to me. Around this circle of intimacy I find the circle of family and dear friends. Then, at a somewhat larger distance, I locate relatives, and acquaintances and, even further away, the associates in business and work. Finally, I am aware of the vast circle of people that I don’t know by name but who in some vague way also belong to this world, which I can call my world. Thus, I am surrounded by expanding circles […]

I don’t say to the bus driver what I can say to my colleagues. I don’t say to my friends what I can say to my parents. But there is a place where nobody can enter, where I am completely by myself, where I develop my own most inner privacy. This is the place where I can meet God, who by His incarnation has thrown off his otherness. The possibility for a man to hide from the face of the world is a condition for the formation of any community.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Intimacy

“If a man has nobody to punish him when he feels he deserves it, he starts punishing himself. It is this inward-turned hostility which causes the depression [...]”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Intimacy

“Many mature, successful men in this life often might still treat God as part of themselves. God is the factotum which comes in handy in times of illness, shock, final exams, in every situation in which we feel insecure. And if it does not work, the only reaction may be to cry louder. Far from becoming the Other, whose existence does not depend on mine, he might remain the easy frame which fits best around the edges of my security.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Intimacy