The Great #‎ Conversion Called

A Happy Life Is A Life For Others.

Living In A Community With Very Wounded People, I Came To See That I Had Lived Most Of My Life As A Tightrope Artist Trying To Walk On A High, Thin Cable From One Tower To The Other, Always Waiting For The Applause When I Had Not Fallen Off And Broken My Leg.

There Is A Wonderful Story In The Gospel Of Luke (6:12-26). Jesus Went Up To The Mountain To Pray At Night; In The Morning He Came Down From The Mountain And Called His Twelve Apostles Around Him. In The Afternoon He Went Out On The Plain With Them To Preach The Good News And Heal The Sick. He Had Communion With God First, Then He Had Community, And Then He Went Out To Do The Work Of God. That's The Order Of Things.

In Solitude We Become Aware That We Were Together Before We Came Together And That Life Is Not A Creation Of Our Will But Rather An Obedient Response To The Reality Of Our Being United.

A Life Without A Lonely Place, That Is, A Life Without A Quiet Center, Easily Becomes Destructive. When We Cling To The Results Of Our Actions As Our Only Way Of Self-identifiction, Then We Become Possessive And Defensive And Tend To Look At Our Fellow Human Beings More As Enemies To Be Kept At A Distance Than As Friends With Whom We Share The Gifts Of Life.