Tuesday, February 15, 2011

A healthy dose of Henri

I love Henri Nouwen. I've been getting his Daily Meditations in my inbox for about 6 years now. They cycle through and I'm starting to recognize my favorites. This is my favorite quote from all of them:

"It wasn't that the Gospel proved useful for my many worries, but that the Gospel proved the uselessness of my worries, and so refocused my whole attention."
- Henri J. Nouwen

Here's another gem that I absolutely love and want to shape my life around:

"Once in a while we meet a gentle person. Gentleness is a virtue hard to find in a society that admires toughness and roughness. We are encouraged to get things done and to get them done fast, even when people get hurt in the process. Success, accomplishment, and productivity count. But the cost is high. There is no place for gentleness in such a milieu.

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


In other news, we did week 2 of P90X and I think we've worked out a time to workout. Things are lookin' up! I can do 15 pushups in a row :)

1 comment:

  1. Okay. 15 push ups...thats 14 more than I can do. =) great job on the progress. On to the gentleness. That was H.U.M.B.L.I.N.G!!! I need to exercise some gentleness. and I need to exercise. Thanks All Natural Hutch!

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