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 it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.
Henri NouwenI am learning that the best cure for hypocrisy is community. Hypocrisy is not so much the result of not living what I preach but much more of not confessing my inability to fully live up to my own words.
Henri NouwenI wrote to my bishop, the Archbishop of Utrecht, Holland, and explained that I wanted not just permission to stay longer, but a mission. He met me at the Trosly L'Arche community and we spent a few days together . . . I wanted him to get to know L'Arche, to understand what I was doing there. Afterward he said, "I understand now, Henri. You have found a home for your self."
Henri Nouwen