Dennis Bakke Quotes

“Nothing tells you more about an organization than the way it makes decisions.”

“It is a sad but undeniable reality that people have died in the line of duty since the earliest days of the United Nations. The first was Ole Bakke, a Norwegian member of the United Nations guard detachment, shot and killed in Palestine in 1948. The toll since then has included colleagues at all levels.”

“The opportunity to tell our story unhindered, uninterrupted is rare. Most of the time people are so involved in their own concerns they do not listen with complete attention. It can be quite startling, therefore, to feel another person fully attending to you, present with you and for you, setting their own struggles aside in order to be available to God an dyou. Sometimes this is wonderfully freeing and at other times it is paralyzing. We find ourselves listening to ourselves, weighing our words, and considering if we speak authentically or frivolously. ... But telling our spiritual director is often a pure gift. As we spekk we begin to see connections that were hidden. Insights arise or our perspective about circumstances or ourselves may shift. There are Divine and human affirmations and confirmations. Sometimes the words we needed to hear come from our own lips. ...Interior developments arise out of silence that are beyond our clear view. We just know that something has moved or changed and that God is active...The opportunity to tell our story opens us to hear God's story more deeply - God's presence and participation in our lives and in the life of the world. In God all human stories connect and when we participate in spiritual direction, we seem to notice more of the connections.”

“Do not expect trust to appear suddenly and in a state of completion. Trust grows gradually as we venture forth little by little, with God and each other. As our trust grows, so will our willingness and courage to speak and listen with greater freedom. Seeing things more clearly is often one of the fruits of our growing trust.”

“You should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. Everyone has something good about them,” [Jeannette's mom] said. “You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.”“Oh yeah?” I said. “How about Hitler? What was his redeeming quality?”“Hitler loved dogs,” Mom said without hesitation.”

“[Mom] said she didn't want her youngest daughter dressed in the thrift-store clothes the rest of us wore. Mom told us we would have to go shoplifting. "Isn't that a sin?" I asked Mom. "Not exactly," Mom said. "God doesn't mind you bending the rules a little if you have good reason. It's sort of like justifiable homicide. This is justifiable pilfering.”

“We climbed under the chain fence and knelt around Dad while he petted the cheetah. By then a few people had begun to gather. One man was calling to us to get back behind the chain fence. We ignored him. I knelt close to the cheetah. My heart was beating fast, but I wasn’t scared, only excited. I could feel the cheetah’s hot breath on my face. He looked right at me. His amber eyes were steady but sad, as if he knew he’d never see the plains of Africa again.”

“Men and women are like right and left hands it doesn't make sense not to use both.”

“I sit down at my desk pretty early in the morning and write all day until about 4 or 5 p.m.”

“The most important accomplishment, I believe, was my voting against the First World War.”