quoting henri

I was flipping through a book before lending it to a friend, and I came across a passage that expresses my heart perfectly. So I give it to you as a gift.

"I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't be to know the people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them."

-Henri Nouwen, in Gracias, A Latin American Journal

..

Thinking about this in the context of Advent, I am reminded of how Christ is the definition of incarnational ministry...that God loves us so much that He was not content to remain in heaven or save us in some surgically clean way...but that Christ was born into all of the messiness of fallen creation, that He knows us by name, but not from afar...but rather from having walked our very streets, from having physically touched, from listening, suffering, eating, crying....yes, this is the miracle of Christmas.

...

God IS with us. Aleluia.