The most courageous thing we humans do is to say "hello" to
one another . . . to spend time together, getting to know one another,
opening ourselves to each other, loving each other, confiding in and confessing
to each other, all the things we do to nurture relationships with one another.
Oh what wonders and love we share because we have said "hello." And we
say hello knowing that, at some point, a time of change will come. Perhaps
that change looks like moving to another town or state, perhaps it looks
like leaving a job we really love, perhaps it looks like a relationship
that has gone as far as it will and what was once two together are now
two apart, perhaps it looks like a goodbye to this life here and a movement
into the next life to come. Whatever it looks like, this change, this goodbye
is painful, full of grief, full of memories, full of the love that undergirded
the "hellos."
Deborah Lyn,
Baptist Peacemaker Extraordinaire
Return to Words of Inspiration and Hope Index
Webpage prepared by Prof. Martha
Olney.
Last updated 6/17/98.