that feeling
Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
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~ Khalil Gibran
We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval. God loves us without conditions but does not approve of every human behavior. God doesn’t approve of betrayal, violence, hatred, suspicion, and all other expressions of evil, because they all contradict the love God wants to instill in the human heart. Evil is the absence of God’s love. Evil does not belong to God.
God’s unconditional love means that God continues to love us even when we say or think evil things. God continues to wait for us as a loving parent waits for the return of a lost child. It is important for us to hold on to the truth that God never gives up loving us even when God is saddened by what we do. That truth will help us to return to God’s ever-present love.
❤️
– Henri Nouwen
‘In all the languages in the world, there is the same proverb: “What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.”
Well, I say that there isn’t an ounce of truth in it. The further off they are, the closer to the heart are all those feelings that we try to repress and forget.
If we’re in exile, we want to store away every tiny memory of our roots.
If we’re far from the person we love, everyone we pass in the street reminds us of them.
‘The gospels and all the sacred texts of all religions were written in exile, in search of God’s understanding, of the faith that moves whole peoples, of the pilgrimage of souls wandering the face of the Earth.
Our ancestors did not know, as we do not know, what the Divinity expects from our lives – and it is out of that doubt that books are written, pictures painted, because we don’t want to forget who we are – nor can we.’
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(in “Eleven Minutes”, by Paulo Coelho)
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life: acoustic & amplified 