Quotable Quotes

You have no doubt noticed that I employ quotes on a fairly regular basis - sometimes, another person's words capture the essence of what I am thinking or feeling in a far better manner than I myself could.  I am still working on my ability to corral the right words in the right order, and I am not a particularly good shepherd. There are too many adjectives, verbs, nouns milling about; a plethora of synonyms from which to choose; and commas, semicolons, and dashes sprouting haphazardly wherever I look.  I love them all, and cannot select just a few at any given moment.

Today, I am reading excerpts by Henri Nouwen.  He speaks of the human condition:  love and fellowship and pain and loneliness and the magnificence of the soul.  I have offered selected words from him before (e.g., here and here); I think, though, that I might need to delve beyond his popular pithy quotes and read more in depth. Here is a smattering of his writings for you.  I hope you enjoy.

On being alone: We must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. 

On waiting:  Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be.

On patience:  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.

On friendship: There is a twilight zone in our hearts that we ourselves cannot see. Even when we know quite a lot about ourselves-our gifts and weaknesses, our ambitions and aspirations, our motives and our drives-large parts of ourselves remain in the shadow of consciousness. This is a very good thing. We will always remain partially hidden to ourselves. Other people, especially those who love us, can often see our twilight zones better than we ourselves can. The way we are seen and understood by others is different from the way we see and understand ourselves. We will never fully know the significance of our presence in the lives of our friends. That's a grace, a grace that calls us not only to humility, but to a deep trust in those who love us. It is the twilight zones of our hearts where true friendships are born.

On caring: 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.