Hope locates itself in the premises that we don't know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act...Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable.
Listening is not always easy. In biting back the urge to interject, to advise, even to condemn, the listener gives him or her self to the other. That giving is an act of love. Dialogue, that is speaking and listening, creates a unity of being, draws us together, pulls us up and out from the "other" everyday world where we are apart into a moment of communion ... Through creative listening we imitate God, the ultimate Listener. God listens, and God waits ... drawing us upward through the sublime power of listening. Dialogue with God and with those we love is the necessary bread of life. Without it we starve.
~ from "Renewing a Marriage" by Walter Reinsdorf in "Fellowship of Prayer" (April 1992)
