Monday, November 9, 2009

book recommendation

Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life written by Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison, is a rich book that I recommend for reading. It's deep, so you'd have to like a deep book, but it addresses the core of this challenging virtue. A quote to chew on...

"Jesus' whole life and mission involve accepting powerlessness and revealing in this powerlessness the limitlessness of God's love. Here, we see what compassion means. It is not a bending toward the under-privileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull. On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there. God's compassion is total, absolute, unconditional, without reservation. It is the compassion of the one who keeps going to the most forgotten corners of the world, and who cannot rest as long as there are still human beings with tears in their eyes. It is the compassion of God who does not merely act as a servant, but who expresses the divinity of God through servanthood."

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