Community calls for open mind and open heart...to be a place where the truth of the one-ness of human community shatters all barriers, refuses all prejudice, welcomes all strangers, listens to all voices. We must ask what God wants for the world, rather than simply what we want. We need the wisdom of humility now. We need that quality of life that makes it possible for humanity to see beyond itself, to value the other, to touch the world gently and peacefully and make the whole world better as we move ahead.
~ Joan Chittister in "Spirituality and Health" -- Nov/Dec 2003
Love is what we long for and were created for—in fact love is what we are as an outpouring from God—but suffering often seems to be our opening to that need, that desire, and that identity. Love and suffering are the main portals that open up the mind space and the heart space (either can come first), breaking us into breadth, and depth and communion.
