Henri J.M. Nouwen Quote
Healthy development means a gradual movement out of the magical world. Even when the development takes place in other areas, our religion easily remains on this immature level. In that case, God remains the magical pacifier whose existence depends on ours. Prayers remain tools to manipulate him in our direction and religion is nothing more than a big, soft bed on which we doze away and deny the hardships of life. Our religious sentiment will never be mature 1) if God is not the Other, 2) if prayer is not a dialogue, and 3) if religion is not a source of creative autonomy.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Healthy development means a gradual movement out of the magical world. Even when the development takes place in other areas, our religion easily remains on this immature level. In that case, God remains the magical pacifier whose existence depends on ours. Prayers remain tools to manipulate him in our direction and religion is nothing more than a big, soft bed on which we doze away and deny the hardships of life. Our religious sentiment will never be mature 1) if God is not the Other, 2) if prayer is not a dialogue, and 3) if religion is not a source of creative autonomy.
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About Henri J.M. Nouwen
After nearly two decades of teaching at academic institutions including the University of Notre Dame, Yale Divinity School and Harvard Divinity School, Nouwen went on to work with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities at the L'Arche Daybreak community in Richmond Hill, Ontario.