Friendship

Today has been awesome so far.....got to have breakfast with my highschool friends.....then went to a book reading with them.
My friend Katie is in town for a book reading.......She wrote a memoir about finding her birthmother. She is pictured above with her birthmother.
I hope you enjoy the quote below.
Namaste,
Michele


Kate's book link

‎"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 confusio...n, 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 [perceived] reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey)

On Friendship

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us,
we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice,
solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain
and touch our wounds with a gentle 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.

Henri Nouwen

Silence

This is our log home we built in 1994. We lived there for like 5 years...until I freaked out and could not take living in the country anymore. I think I could live there now...but I am a different person from whero I was then......anyway, we are happy here and are supose to be here right now.....weird how life takes you places you have no idea where you are going.....and somehow you end up right where you are suppose to be.
love,
Michele


Henri Nouwen on Silence

Being silent seems like doing nothing,
but it is precisely in silence that we confront our true selves.
The sorrows of our lives often overwhelm us to such a degree that
we will do everything not to face them.
Radio, television, newspapers, books, films,
but also hard work and a busy social life all can be ways to run away
from ourselves and turn life into a long entertainment
(which means, in the Latin, “to keep someone in between.”)
Entertainment is everything that gets and keeps our mind
away from things that are hard to face.
Entertainment keeps us away from our fears and worries.
But when we start living entertainment,
we lose touch with our souls and become little more that spectators in a lifelong show.
Even very useful and relevant work can become a way of forgetting who we really are.

Silence is the discipline that helps us
go beyond the entertainment quality of our lives.
There, we can look at our sorrows and joys emerge
from their hidden places and look us in the face, saying,
“Don’t be afraid; you can look at your own journey, its dark and light sides,
and discover the way to freedom.”

Wherever we find silence, we should cherish it.
Because it is in silence that we can truly acknowledge who we are
and gradually claim ourselves as a gift from God.
--from Can You Drink the Wine