Stories

They say a picture is worth a thousand words because it tells a story. We really do need each other!

How does one keep from 'growing old inside'? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people...Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notions that we are indispensable.

-Robert McAfee Brown

Community is also the place where we discover and live out of our story. We need friends because:

• The stories we tell about others are really stories about ourselves.
• None of us does a very good job of examining ourselves. It takes practice.
• The less one deals with his or her own story, the more it crops up, over and over, in the stories we now live.
• Conflict is never about the other person. It's always about me. Dealing with conflict teaches me about me.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will always lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

There fore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
- Thomas Merton