“The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen
“Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’ But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
Valley to mountain
Back again
Diving below the surface
Deep water
Rising anew
Beneath the noise
Quieting to inquire, hear
Anchor in the storm
Slowing to reflect
Pausing to reverence
Thin spaces
Hem of heaven
Partaking in the present
Garden of solitude
Take the journey, step by step
Steadfast
Peace awaits your arrival
To fearless play.
“To live a spiritual life 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. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
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