Fellowship Reflections

Why has God brought me to this meeting? These are people I would not normally mix with. As I look around the room there are mostly homeless people who need a shower. They smell awful.

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
- Thomas Merton

Never let me imagine that my satisfaction in life depends on what someone else may do. I can learn to avail myself of the immense, inexhaustible power of God, if I am willing to be continually conscious of God’s nearness.

Peace. It does not mean to be in a places where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst in of those things and still be calm in your heart.

I will pause and think before I say anything, lest my anger turns back on me and makes my difficulties even greater. I will know that well-timed silence can give me control of a situation as angry reproaches never can.

You will make mistakes but if they are in earnest they will not drag you down, you will capitalize on them.

One source of frustration we seldom recognize is expecting too much of others, or expecting too specifically what we feel they ought to be, say, give or do.

If I expect another person to react in a certain way to a given situation and he or she fails to meet my expectation, have I the right to be disappointed or angry?

Every human being has his own motivations, beyond my understanding and control. I may say: “But he knew what I expected,” not realizing that it may have been precisely for this reason that he rebelled and acted otherwise.