If you want a good book to chew on for awhile, pick up Jean Vanier’s Community and Growth. It’s rich, crammed full of wisdom that comes from experience and insight into how people function with each other and God.

This morning I was reading it while drinking coffee, sitting in the sun on the steps. The following paragraph made me remember the meeting I was in yesterday where all 3 of us admitted a certain level of fear about the new things we were planning/discussing, and that honesty helped me feel not so alone as I had before.

This  is from the chapter “Nourishment.”

I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes. There is a fundamental tendency to become discouraged in community. We either believe that others are better than we are, or that they don’t have to cope with the same problems. The discovery that we are all in the same boat and all have the same fears and weariness, can help us to continue. People are nourished by humility, because humility is truth; it is a sign of the presence of God.–Jean Vanier