Mailchimp Archived e-Updates and Nouwen Quotes
(‘A Nouwen Network’ 2015 - 2020)
Please Note - Feb 2015 to Nov 2015 updates are not available within these Mailchimp Archives
2014
2013
2 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2013 5:22 PM
God will stay with us at all times.
Even though we are often downcast, Jesus always speaks about hope. And this hope is different from optimism. Jesus is not an optimist. He is not a pessimist.
Optimism arranges reality in a way that enables us to say things will get better. Pessimism arranges the same reality so that we can say things will probably get worse. When it rains the optimist says, How wonderful! Things will grow! Seeing the same rain, the pessimist says, everything will drown!
Being neither an optimist nor a pessimist, Jesus speaks about hope that is not based on chances that things will get better or worse. His hope is built on the promise that whatever happens, God will stay with us at all times.
God is the God of life…
Henri J. M. Nouwen from The Road to Peace
1 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 6:13 PM
Hidden Greatness
"There is much emphasis on notoriety and fame in our society. Our newspapers and television keep giving us the message: What counts is to be known, praised, and admired, whether you are a writer, an actor, a musician, or a politician.
Still, real greatness is often hidden, humble, simple, and unobtrusive. It is not easy to trust ourselves and our actions without public affirmation. We must have strong self-confidence combined with deep humility. Some of the greatest works of art and the most important works of peace were created by people who had no need for the limelight. They knew that what they were doing was their call, and they did it with great patience, perseverance, and love."
Henri J. M. Nouwen from Bread For The Journey
2012
9 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 9:47 PM
“For us to work for justice and peace and really be activists in the good sense of the word is to do it not because we need to prove to ourselves or anybody that we are worth loving. Rather, it is because we are so in touch with our belovedness that we are free to act according to the truth and say no to injustice and say yes when we see justice and peace.
…The great obstacle which prevents the Spirit working in us is self-rejection. The greatest obstacle to the Spirit working in us is that we say to ourselves that we are useless, we are nothing.
Once I know I am the Beloved, once I start discovering that in me, then the Spirit can work in me and in others; then we can do wonderful things.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen from Discipleship and Reconciliation quoted in The Only Necessary Thing
“Before concluding these thoughts about our being blessed, I must tell you that claiming your own blessedness always leads to a deep desire to bless others. The characteristics of the blessed ones is that, wherever they go, they always speak words of blessing.
It is remarkable how easy it is to bless others, to speak good things to and about them, to call forth their beauty and truth, when you yourself are in touch with your own blessedness. The blessed one always blesses. And people want to be blessed! This is so apparent wherever you go.
No one is brought to life through curses, gossip, accusations, or blaming. There is so much of that taking place around is all the time. And it calls forth only darkness, destruction, and death. As the "blessed ones," we can walk through this world and offer blessings. It doesn't require much effort. It flows naturally from our hearts. When we hear within ourselves the voice calling us by name and blessing us, the darkness no longer distracts us. The voice that calls us the Beloved will give us words to bless others and reveal to them that they are no less blessed than we.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen from Life of the Beloved
8 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 12:30 AM
“The mystery of our ministry is that we are called to serve not with our power but with our powerlessness. It is through powerlessness that we can enter into solidarity with our fellow human beings, form a community with the weak, and thus reveal the healing, guiding, and sustaining mercy of God. We are called to speak to people not where they have it together but where they are aware of their pain, not where they are in control but where they are trembling and insecure, not where they are self-assured and assertive but where they dare to doubt and raise hard questions; in short, not where they live in the illusion of immortality but where they are ready to face their broken, mortal, and fragile humanity. As followers of Christ, we are sent into the world naked, vulnerable, and weak, and thus we can reach our fellow human beings in their pain and agony and reveal to them the power of God’s love and empower them with the power of God’s Spirit.”
Henri J.M. Nouwen -The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life
7 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 9:52 PM
Keep your eyes on the prince of peace, the one who doesn't cling to his divine power; the one who refuses to turn stones into bread, jump from great heights and rule with great power; the one who says, "Blessed are the poor, the gentle, those who mourn, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness" (see Matt. 5:3-11); the one who touches the lame, the crippled, and the blind; the one who speaks words of forgiveness and encouragement; the one who dies alone, rejected and despised. Keep your eyes on him who becomes poor with the poor, weak with the weak, and who is rejected with the rejected. He is the source of all peace.
Where is this peace to be found? The answer is clear. In weakness. First of all, in our own weakness, in those places of our hearts where we feel most broken, most insecure, most in agony, most afraid. Why there? Because there our familiar ways of controlling our world are being stripped away; there we are called to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right there where we are weakest the peace which is not of this world is hidden.
Henri J.M. Nouwen - Adam's Story: The Peace That Is Not Of This World
6 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2012 8:34 PM
When we say to people, "I will pray for you," we make a very important commitment. The sad thing is that this remark often remains nothing but a well-meant expression of concern. But when we learn to descend with our mind into our heart, then all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God and are touched by him in the center of our being. We are speaking here about a mystery for which words are inadequate.
Here we can see the intimate relationship between prayer and ministry. The discipline of leading all our people with their struggles into the gentle and humble heart of God is the discipline of prayer as well as the discipline of ministry. As long as ministry only means that we worry a lot about people and their problems; as long as it means an endless number of activities which we can hardly coordinate, we are still very much dependent on our own narrow and anxious heart. But when our worries are led to the heart of God and there become prayer, then ministry and prayer become two manifestations of the same all-embracing love of God.
Henri J.M. Nouwen - The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry
5 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 8:00 PM
Joys are hidden in sorrows! I know this from my own times of depression. I know it from living with people with mental handicaps. I know it from looking into the eyes of patients, and from being with the poorest of the poor. We keep forgetting this truth and become overwhelmed by our own darkness. We easily lose sight of our joys and speak of our sorrows as the only reality there is.
We need to remind each other that the cup of sorrow is also the cup of joy, that precisely what causes us sadness can become the fertile ground for gladness. Indeed, we need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.
Henri J.M. Nouwen - Can You Drink The Cup
4 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 11:11 PM
Often mission is thought of exclusively in terms of giving, but true mission is also receiving. If it is true that the Spirit of Jesus blows where it wants, there is no person who cannot give that Spirit. In the long run, mission is possible only when it is as much receiving as giving, as much being cared for as caring. We are sent to the sick, the dying, the handicapped, the prisoners, and the refugees to bring them the good news of the Lord’s resurrection. But we will soon be burned out if we cannot receive the Spirit of the Lord from those to whom we are sent.
That Spirit, the Spirit of love, is hidden in their poverty, brokenness, and grief. That is why Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor, the persecuted, and those that mourn.” Each time we reach out to them they in turn---whether they are aware of it or not---will bless us with the Spirit of Jesus and so become our ministers. Without this mutuality of giving and receiving, mission and ministry easily become manipulative or violent. When only one gives and the other receives, the giver will soon become an oppressor and the receivers, victims. But when the giver receives and the receiver gives, the circle of love, begun in the community of the disciples, can grow as wide as the world.
Henri J.M. Nouwen - “With Burning Heart”.
3 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 6:23 PM
Dear God,
Speak gently in my silence.
When the loud outer noises of my surroundings
and the loud inner noises of my fears
keep pulling me away from you,
help me to trust that you are still there
even when I am unable to hear you.
Give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying:
"Come to me, you who are overburdened,
and I will give you rest...
for I am gentle and humble of heart."
Let that loving voice be my guide.
Amen.
Henri J. M. Nouwen - With Open Hands
2 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 10:14 PM
Compassion means to suffer with, to live with those who suffer.… We are sent to wherever there is poverty, loneliness, and suffering to have the courage to be with people. Trust that by throwing yourself into that place of pain you will find the joy of Jesus. All ministries in history are built on that vision. A new world grows out of compassion.
Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate. It's a great call. But don't be fearful; don't be afraid. Don't say, "I can't do that. When you are aware that you are the beloved, and when you have friends around you with whom you live in community, you can do anything. You're not afraid anymore. You're not afraid to knock on the door while somebody's dying. You're not afraid to open a discussion with a person who underneath all the glitter is much in need of ministry. You're free.
I've experienced that constantly. When I was depressed or when I felt anxious, I knew my friends couldn't solve it. Those who ministered to me were those who were not afraid to be with me. Precisely where I felt my poverty I discovered God's blessing.
Henri Nouwen -“Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry.”
(This article originally appeared in Leadership Journal, Spring 1995.)
1 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 10:36 PM
Fellowship with Jesus Christ is not a commitment to suffer as much as possible, but a commitment to listen with him to God’s love without fear. It is to obedience – understood as an intimate, fearless listening to God’s continuing love – that we are called.
We are often tempted to “explain” suffering in terms of “the will of God.” Not only can this evoke anger and frustration, but also it is false. “God’s will” is not a label that can be put on unhappy situations. God wants to bring joy not pain, peace not war, healing not suffering. Therefore, instead of declaring anything and everything to be the will of God, we must be willing to ask ourselves where in the midst of our pains and sufferings we can discern the loving presence of God. When, however, we discover that our obedient listening leads us to our suffering neighbors, we can go to them in the joyful knowledge that love brings us there. We are poor listeners because we are afraid that there is something other than love in God.
Henri Nouwen - Compassion
2011
9 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 1:11 AM
A Spirituality of Waiting
The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, who believes that this moment is the moment.
A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. …Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the moment, as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her.
…To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God molds us according to God's love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.
Henri J.M. Nouwen - ‘Finding My Way Home’, (see also Seeds of Hope: A Henri Nouwen Reader
pp. 158-160)
8 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011 7:03 PM
Gratitude
Gratitude, ... goes beyond the “mine” and “thine” and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to be grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly. I can choose to listen to the voices that forgive and to look at the faces that smile, even while I still hear words of revenge and see grimaces of hatred.
– Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 85
7 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 8:17 PM
Giving and Receiving Consolation
Consolation is a beautiful word. It means "to be" (con-) "with the lonely one" (solus). To offer consolation is one of the most important ways to care. Life is so full of pain, sadness, and loneliness that we often wonder what we can do to alleviate the immense suffering we see. We can and must offer consolation. We can and must console the mother who lost her child, the young person with AIDS, the family whose house burned down, the soldier who was wounded, the teenager who contemplates suicide, the old man who wonders why he should stay alive.
To console does not mean to take away the pain but rather to be there and say, "You are not alone, I am with you. Together we can carry the burden. Don't be afraid. I am here." That is consolation. We all need to give it as well as to receive it.
Henri Nouwen – Bread For The Journey, February 9
6 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2011 9:02 PM
…in the biblical understanding, heart is the centre of our being. It’s not a muscle, but a symbol for the very centre of our being. Now the beautiful thing about the heart is that the heart is the place we are mostly ourselves. It’s like the core of our being, it’s the spiritual centre of our being. …the heart is the place where God speaks to us, where we hear the voice who calls us the beloved. This is precisely in the most intimate place.
Prayer and solitude are ways to listen to the voice that speaks to our heart. …One of the most amazing things about that concept is that if you enter deeper and deeper into that place, you not only meet God there, but you meet the whole world there.
…. When God speaks in my heart, my heart becomes as wide as the world. It becomes like the marketplace of the world. A lot of people think about prayer or solitude as withdrawing from the world into a private space, but that’s not at all the case. …Solitude and prayer bring you into a spiritual communion with the whole people.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of these big wagon-wheels. They have a hub with all these spokes, but quite often we remain on the rim of the wheel. Prayer is to go to the hub. That’s solitude, that’s the heart. Prayer is going to your heart, but it’s also going to the heart of the world and all the spokes get together right there. It is not that you lose contact, in fact you are more connected with people when you’re in the heart than when you run around on the edges.
Spiritually speaking, that is what intercessory prayer is all about. It is to enter into the heart of God and be there in communion not only with God, but also with humanity. My deepest conviction is that communion with God and solidarity with all of humanity always go together.
Henri Nouwen - An Extract from ‘Beloved’.
.
5 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:01 PM
Empowered To Be.
Who are we? Are we what we do? Are we what others say about us? Are we the power we have? It often seems that way in our society. But the Spirit of Jesus given to us reveals our true spiritual identities. The Spirit reveals that we belong not to a world of success, fame, or power but to God. The world enslaves us with fear; the Spirit frees us from that slavery and restores us to the true relationship.
…Who are we? We are God's beloved sons and daughters!
Henri Nouwen - Bread For The Journey, June 10
4 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 10:50 PM
“Prayer is the way to both the heart of God and the heart of the world - precisely because they have been joined through the suffering of Jesus Christ…Praying is letting one’s own heart become the place where the tears of God’s children merge and become tears of hope.”
Henri Nouwen - Love in A Fearful Land
3 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2011 11:26 AM
The Life of the Beloved
I would like to speak to you about the spiritual life as the life of the beloved. …Let me start by telling you that many of the people that I live with hear voices that tell them that they are no good, that they are a problem, that they are a burden, that they are a failure. They hear a voice that keeps saying, “If you want to be loved, you had better prove that you are worth loving. You must show it.”
But what I would like to say is that the spiritual life is a life in which you gradually learn to listen to a voice that says something else, that says, “You are the beloved and on you my favor rests.”
You are the beloved and on you my favor rests.
Jesus heard that voice. He heard that voice when He came out of the Jordan River. I want you to hear that voice, too. It is a very important voice that says, "You are my beloved son; you are my beloved daughter. I love you with an everlasting love. I have molded you together in the depths of the earth. I have knitted you in your mother's womb. I've written your name in the palm of my hand and I hold you safe in the shade of my embrace. I hold you. You belong to Me and I belong to you. You are safe where I am. Don't be afraid. Trust that you are the beloved. That is who you truly are."
I want you to hear that voice. It is not a very loud voice because it is an intimate voice. It comes from a very deep place. It is soft and gentle. I want you to gradually hear that voice. We both have to hear that voice and to claim for ourselves that that voice speaks the truth, our truth. It tells us who we are. That is where the spiritual life starts — by claiming the voice that calls us the beloved.
–from the sermon “Life of the Beloved,” Henri Nouwen, May 17, 1991
2 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2011 3:34 PM
Dressed In Gentleness
Once in a while we meet a gentle person. … Gentle is the one who does “not break the crushed reed, or snuff the faltering wick” (Matthew 12:20). Gentle is the one who is attentive to the strengths and weaknesses of the other and enjoys being together more than accomplishing something. A gentle person treads lightly, listens carefully, looks tenderly, and touches with reverence. A gentle person knows that true growth requires nurture, not force. Let’s dress ourselves with gentleness. In our tough and often unbending world our gentleness can be a vivid reminder of the presence of God among us.
Henri Nouwen - Bread For The Journey.
1 From: nouwen-network@optusnet.com.au Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2011 9:37 PM
Creating Space For Strangers
In our world full of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found. …it is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become fellow human beings.
…Hospitality, therefore, means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend.
…The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.
Henri Nouwen – Reaching Out.
2010
6. From: nouwen-network Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 10:07 PM
What God calls us to do we can do and do well. When we listen in silence to Gods voice and speak with our friends in trust we will know what we are called to do and we will do it with a grateful heart.
Henri Nouwen - Can You Drink the Cup?
5. From: nouwen-network Sent: Monday, October 11, 2010 9:43 PM
The Mosaic That Shows Us the Face of God
A mosaic consists of thousands of little stones. Some are blue, some are green, some are yellow, some are gold. When we bring our faces close to the mosaic, we can admire the beauty of each stone. But as we step back from it, we can see that all these little stones reveal to us a beautiful picture, telling a story none of these stones can tell by itself. That is what our life in community is about. Each of us is like a little stone, but together we reveal the face of God to the world. Nobody can say: "I make God visible." But others who see us together can say: "They make God visible." Community is where humility and glory touch.
Henri Nouwen - Bread For The Journey.
4. From: nouwen-network Sent: Sunday, September 05, 2010 8:22 PM
Drawing Close: True Compassion Enters the Places of Pain.
We are good at criticizing others and even better at giving advice. We assume we know what is best for others, particularly the unfortunate members of our society. But we are not so good at compassionate participation. We often fail to draw close. We are afraid of involvement, for we know that we may not be able to control the demands that may be made of us.
Yet compassion asks us precisely to take such a risk. In the words of Nouwen, compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain.
Going there does not mean barging in with easy answers and quick solutions. It means learning to listen even for what, initially, cannot be expressed. It means being honest about our own needs and struggles so that we can listen more carefully. It means journeying with people in their attempts at resolution and healing. It means being there, but not controlling or crowding others. It means reaching out without taking over. It means holding without withholding, giving without looking to receive, and entering a partnership that releases others to pursue their own dreams and aspirations.
from: "Dare to Journey with Henri Nouwen", by Charles Ringma
3. From: nouwen-network Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 2:35 PM
Sharing Our Solitude
A friend is more than a therapist or a confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness.
A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.'
Henri J.M. Nouwen - Bread for the Journey
2. From: nouwen-network Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 11:44 PM
"Our vocation as Christians is to follow Jesus on his downward path and to become witnesses to God's compassion in the concrete situation of our time and place"
Henri J. Nouwen - The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life
1. From: nouwen-network Sent: Thursday, April 8, 2010 9:27 PM
“The joy that Jesus offers his disciples is his own joy, which flows from his intimate communion with the One who sent him. It is a joy that does not separate happy days from sad days, successful moments from moments of failure, experiences of honor from experiences of dishonor, passion from resurrection. This joy is a divine gift that does not leave us during times of illness, poverty, oppression, or persecution. It is present even when the world laughs or tortures, robs or maims, fights or kills. It is truly ecstatic, always moving us away from the house of fear into the house of love, and always proclaiming that death no longer has the final say, though its noise remains loud and its devastation visible. The joy of Jesus lifts up life to be celebrated.”
Henri J.M. Nouwen - ‘Lifesigns’
An Addendum - Thanks to Irene
On more than one occasion, Irene Frances, (a journalist, founding member and friend), sagely admonished me: “Make sure you keep all A Nouwen Network’s early documents and significant emails Jane. Those kinds of records will be needed one day when the time comes to write a history of this network.” Thanks to Irene, I have a surviving hard copy of this email and the attached Henri Nouwen quotes. It is significant in that it is the point at which a date for the gathering that established A Nouwen Network was set down -Wednesday 11 November 2009. The Henri Nouwen quotes were those that Lyndal, Rose and I had been prayerfully reflecting on. It seems right to include them here.
July 21 - Crossing the Road for One Another
We become neighbors when we are willing to cross the road for one another. There is so much separation and segregation: between black people and white people, between gay people and straight people, between young people and old people, between sick people and healthy people, between prisoners and free people, between Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Christians, Protestants and Catholics, Greek Catholics and Latin Catholics.
There is a lot of road crossing to do. We are all very busy in our own circles. We have our own people to go to and our own affairs to take care of. But if we could cross the road once in a while and pay attention to what is happening on the other side, we might indeed become neighbors.
July 22 - Bridging the Gap Between People
To become neighbors is to bridge the gap between people. As long as there is distance between us and we cannot look into one another's eyes, all sorts of false ideas and images arise. We give them names, make jokes about them, cover them with our prejudices, and avoid direct contact. We think of them as enemies. We forget that they love as we love, care for their children as we care for ours, become sick and die as we do. We forget that they are our brothers and sisters and treat them as objects that can be destroyed at will.
Only when we have the courage to cross the road and look in one another's eyes can we see there that we are children of the same God and members of the same human family.
From: Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith
Henri J. M. Nouwen (HarperCollins, 1997)
A Friend who Cares
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
From: Out of Solitude by Henri J. M. Nouwen
January 7 – The Gift of Friendship
Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, common interests, or common histories. It is a bond stronger than sexual union can create, deeper than a shared fate can solidify, and it can be even more intimate than the bonds of marriage or community.
Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or decrease the sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love. Friendship makes all of life shine brightly. Blessed are those who lay down their lives for their friends.
From: Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith
Henri J. M. Nouwen (HarperCollins, 1997)