John Khalil > John's Quotes

“We all have the opportunity to overcome our self-centered natures and learn to live for the benefit of others. That means forgiving those who offend us. It does not mean ignoring wrongs done to us. Our sense of justice will not allow us to overlook unloving actions. If it did, evil would prevail in the world. But in the tension between justice and love, love can be the more powerful reality. Forgiveness is the choice to love rather than demand justice. When we are living out of our true selves, even greater than our desire to get even is our desire for reconciliation.”
― Gary Chapman, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life

“Love is not only realistic, but our only hope of survival.”
― Gary Chapman, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life

“I believe that not only does love stand a chance in this world, but in fact it is our only chance.”
― Gary Chapman, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life

“If we think of love as a feeling, we shall be frustrated when we can’t always work up that feeling. When we realize love is primarily an action, we are ready to use the tools we have to love better.”
― Gary Chapman, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life

“My own definition of success is “leaving your corner of the world better than you found it.” Your “corner” may be focused on a single town or a neighborhood within a city, or it may carry you to dozens of countries. Whatever your sphere of influence, when you are seeking to enrich the lives of others through relationships, you will find the most satisfying form of success.”
― Gary Chapman, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life

“Relationships, with all the pain and joy they bring, are an inherent part of life, as unavoidable as breathing. After all, we are all born in relationship. We are conceived in the relationship of husband and wife. Nine months later we emerge, not from an egg to hatch on its own, but from the womb, wet and bawling, literally tied to our mother. We are programmed from the beginning, from the moment that first tie (the umbilical cord) is severed, we are programmed to feel that we are relational beings dependent on one another. Relationships are central to our lives. Our learning, our work, the discovery of ourselves all depends on relationships. We cannot truly know ourselves if we do not have another person to relate to. Of course, the most important relationship for us Christians is our relationship with God Whom we are called to know and love with all our mind, heart, soul, and strength in order to establish thereby a relationship of love with our neighbor. Thus, the first and greatest commandment “You shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself,” is a personal call to love and commitment.”
― Anthony M. Coniaris, God and You: Person to Person

“The teacher was still alive, so he sought her out and asked the old but still alert lady what magic formula she had used to pull these boys out of the slums into successful achievement.

The teacher’s eyes sparkled and her lips broke into a gentle smile. “It’s really very simple,” she said. “I loved those boys.”
― Anthony M. Coniaris, God and You: Person to Person

“Many people say the first step in acquiring humility is to realize that we are proud. When we acknowledge the desire to be bigger and better than others, we are liberated to understand the people we were meant to be.”
― gary chapman, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life

“The person who holds a PhD in aerodynamics may know little about human relationships. The person lettered in psychology may know almost nothing about physics. While we may develop a great deal of knowledge about one small facet of the universe, we remain ignorant beside the immense ocean of knowledge. In the light of our great ignorance, where is the rationale for pride?”
― Gary Chapman, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life

“With all these things in mind, why is truth telling so important? Because even though we are inclined to distort the truth, deep within every one of us is an awareness of a difference between the truth and falsehood. I remember the five-year-old boy who answered the phone and said his mother wasn’t there. Then he paused and said, “Actually, she is here, but she’s in the bathtub.” We constantly struggle with our false self, yet something inside us wants us to be known as people who speak truth. We lose respect for the person who chooses falsehood continuously, and likewise we respect the person who speaks honestly. No matter what our behavior is right now, something in us knows that falsehood destroys and love builds.”
― gary chapman, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life

“The late Fred Rogers, beloved host of the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood television show, wrote many beautiful songs for children that hold great truths for adults as well. In “I Like to Be Told,” he writes of every child’s desire to be told “if it’s going to hurt,” if a parent is going away, or if something will be new or difficult, because “I will trust you more and more” each time these things come true.

We never outgrow our desire to be told the truth. A fellow writer told me the story of waking up one morning when she was a child and being told she wouldn’t be going to kindergarten that day but tot the hospital for eye surgery. Her suitcase was already packed. She was old enough to understand that this meant her parents had withheld information from her. The memory of being betrayed is more painful than the memory of the surgery itself.

Compare this with a young boy who recently faced heart surgery. He asked his grandfather if it was going to hurt. His grandfather answered with honest that engendered hope: “Yes, for a while. But every day the pain should get less and less, and it means you’ll be getting better and stronger.”
― Gary Chapman, Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life

“THE MAGIC OF LOVE

The magic of personal love works miracles as this true story testifies:

Even one person’s intimate love can deeply heal another. For example,Tom, a simple person without training in psychotherapy, worked as an orderly in a mental hospital. One of the sickest patients in the hospital, a deeply psychotic woman, had been there for eighteen years. She never spoke to anyone, or even looked in another’s eyes. She sat alone all day in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth. One day during his dinner break, Tom found another rocking chair, pulled it over, and rocked along beside her as he ate his dinner. He returned the next day, and the next. Tom worked only five days per week, but he asked for special permission to come in on his days off so he could rock with the psychotic woman. Tom did this every day for six months. Then one evening as he got up to leave, the woman said, “Good night.”
It was the first time she had spoken in eighteen years. After that, she began to get well. Tom still came to rock with her every day, and eventually she was healed of her psychosis.*

*Healing the Eight Stages of Life. M. Linn, S. Fabricant, D. Linn. Paulist Press. 1988.”
― Anthony M. Coniaris, God and You: Person to Person

“ON BEING COMPLETELY PRESENT

Mark Von Doren said once:

“There is one thing we can do, and the happiest people are those who do it to the limit of their ability.

…We can be completely present. We can be all there. We can control the tendency of our minds to wander from the situation we are in, toward yesterday, toward tomorrow, toward something we have forgotten, toward some other place we are going next. It is hard to do this, but it is harder to understand afterward wherein it was we fell so short. It was where and when we ceased to give our entire attention to the person, the opportunity before us.

…Those who have fewest regrets are those who take each moment as it comes for all that it is worth. It will never come again, for worse or better. It is ours alone; we can make it what we will.”
― Anthony M. Coniaris, God and You: Person to Person

“How often people come to us, children to parents, wives to husbands, friends to friends, trying to unload their burdens, and as we sit there listening, our minds and hearts are thousands of miles away. If we were completely present to each other, we would rightfully expect miracles to happen. To be completely present to others is to help them experience the personal love of God.”
― Anthony M. Coniaris, God and You: Person to Person

“All sin is against love. Our relationship to God is like the intimate relationship of husband and wife. As such, sin is infidelity to love. When we sin, we break not just a commandment; we break God’s heart, as the heart of one partner in marriage is broken when the other is unfaithful. Sin is personal unfaithfulness to Christ our Bridgegroom.”
― Anthony M. Coniaris, God and You: Person to Person

“It turns out people don’t listen to each other very much. Once someone feels listened to, they can’t stop talking.”
― Kio Stark, When Strangers Meet: How People You Don't Know Can Transform You

“We communicate emotionally with our partners because we are close to them, we seek to understand and be understood. But we also rely on a "closeness bias." We assume our partners already know what we mean, that they can read our minds a little, and we want that. We may communicate emotionally more fluidly with strangers because we don't assume they already know what we mean.”
― Kio Stark, When Strangers Meet: How People You Don't Know Can Transform You

“Just when all those around me were assuring me they loved me, cared for me, appreciated me, yes, even admired me, I experienced myself as a useless, unloved, and despicable person. Just when people were putting their arms around me, I saw the endless depth of my human misery and felt that there was nothing worth living for. Just when I had found a home, I felt absolutely homeless. Just when I was being praised for my spiritual insights, I felt devoid of faith. Just when people were thanking me for bringing them closer to God, I felt that God had abandoned me. It was as if the house I had finally had no floors. The anguish completely paralyzed me. I could no longer sleep. I cried uncontrollably for hours. I could not be reached by consoling words or arguments. I no longer had any interest in other people's problems. I lost all appetite for food and could not appreciate the beauty of music, art, or even nature. All had become darkness. Within me there was one long scream coming from a place I didn't know existed, a place full of demons.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom

“There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom

“You feel overwhelmed by distractions, fantasies, the disturbing desire to throw yourself into the world of pleasure. But you know already that you will not find there an answer to your deepest question. Nor does the answer lie in rehashing old events, or in guilt or shame. All of that makes you dissipate yourself and leave the rock on which your house is built.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom

“silence usually taught him more than the company of others.”
― Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

“Walking causes a repetitive, spontaneous poetry to rise naturally to the lips, words as simple as the sound of footsteps on the road. There also seems to be an echo of walking in the practice of two choruses singing a psalm in alternate verses, each on a single note, a practice that makes it possible to chant and listen by turns. Its main effect is one of repetition and alternation that St Ambrose compared to the sound of the sea: when a gentle surf is breaking quietly on the shore the regularity of the sound doesn’t break the silence, but structures it and renders it audible. Psalmody in the same way, in the to-and-fro of alternating responses, produces (Ambrose said) a happy tranquillity in the soul. The echoing chants, the ebb and flow of waves recall the alternating movement of walking legs: not to shatter but to make the world’s presence palpable and keep time with it. And just as Claudel said that sound renders silence accessible and useful, it ought to be said that walking renders presence accessible and useful.”
― Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

“There are two realities to which you must cling. First, God has promised that you will receive the love you have been searching for. And second, God is faithful to that promise.

So stop wandering around. Instead, come home and trust that God will bring you what you need. Your whole life you have been running about, seeking the love you desire. Now it is time to end that search. Trust that God will give you that all-fulfilling love and will give it in a human way.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

“One of my students performed a radical, poetic intervention into that field of isolation. He was listening to music with headphones, sitting next to a woman also wearing headphones, who was moving a little to her music. He took off his headphones and held them out to her. She looked puzzled for a moment, then took hers off and traded with him. They listened to each other's music for a few minutes and then traded back. Not a word passed between them.”
― Kio Stark, When Strangers Meet: How People You Don't Know Can Transform You

“So it’s best to walk alone, except that one is never entirely alone. As Henry David Thoreau wrote: ‘I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.’ To be buried in Nature is perpetually distracting. Everything talks to you, greets you, demands your attention: trees, flowers, the colour of the roads. The sigh of the wind, the buzzing of insects, the babble of streams, the impact of your feet on the ground: a whole rustling murmur that responds to your presence. Rain, too. A light and gentle rain is a steady accompaniment, a murmur you listen to with its intonations, outbursts, pauses: the distinct plopping of drops splashing on stone, the long melodious weave of sheets of rain falling steadily.

It’s impossible to be alone when walking, with so many things under our gaze which are given to us through the inalienable grasp of contemplation.”
― Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

“The illusion of speed is the belief that it saves time. It looks simple at first sight: finish something in two hours instead of three, gain an hour. It’s an abstract calculation, though, done as if each hour of the day were like an hour on the clock, absolutely equal.

But haste and speed accelerate time, which passes more quickly, and two hours of hurry shorten a day. Every minute is torn apart by being segmented, stuffed to bursting. You can pile a mountain of things into an hour.”
― Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

“Every time you do something that comes from your needs for acceptance, affirmation, or affection, and every time you do something that makes these needs grow, you know that you are not with God. These needs will never be satisfied; they will only increase when you yield to them. But every time you do something for the glory of God, you will know God’s peace in your heart and find rest there.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom

“When you experience a great need for human affection, you have to ask yourself whether the circumstances surrounding you and the people you are with are truly where God wants you to be. Whatever you are doing—watching a movie, writing a book, giving a presentation, eating, or sleeping—you have to stay in God’s presence.

If you feel a great loneliness and a deep longing for human contact, you have to be extremely discerning. Ask yourself whether this situation is truly God-given. Because where God wants you to be, God holds you safe and gives you peace, even when there is pain.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom

“Your way of being present to your community may require times of absence, prayer, writing, or solitude. These too are times for your community.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom

“A lot of giving and receiving has a violent quality, because the givers and receivers act more out of need than out of trust. What looks like generosity is actually manipulation, and what looks like love is really a cry for affection or support.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom