A Greater Love...

God comes to us in the midst of human need, and the most pressing needs of our time demand community in response. (PPalmer)

What matters in life are not great deeds,

but great love. St Therese of Lisieux

Neighbourhood gestation...

The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full belief that something hidden will manifest itself to us. Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. The moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the moment, as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her womb. HNouwen

Is your neighbourhood frigid?

Are you helping to 'change the atmosphere'?

Nurture a giving heart in your neighbourhood.

The word community has many connotations, some positive, some negative. Community can make us think of a safe togetherness, shared meals, common goals, and joyful celebrations. It also can call forth images of sectarian exclusivity, in-group language, self-satisfied isolation, and romantic naiveté. However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. 

Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own (see Philippians 2:4-11). The question, therefore, is not "How can we make community?" but "How can we develop and nurture giving hearts?" HNouwen