the marriage of conversation and community

"Ultimately conversation is the greatest gift of community... it is conversation that sustains marriage, friendship and congregational life... Most of all, though, it is in conversation that we grow in wisdom, grace and strength. It is through conversation that we are encouraged, that we fill one another with courage...
When genuine conversation happens, it is life to us. In the listening and speaking of conversation we have the capacity for intimacy... Without conversation we are alone - alone in our fears, and worse, alone because we are disconnected from ourselves. Ironically, the truth is that we are connected to ourselves only when we are connected to others; we are capable of true self-knowledge, knowledge that enables us to know and accept the call of God, only when we are in communion with others..."
-quotes from Courage and Calling by Gordon T. Smith

Conversation has helped me recently, helped me to know God's call on my life, which may lead me overseas in the near future, to live in a foreign country and culture... it is the conversation with others, and the solitude with God ("solitude is not the act of being alone; rather it is the event of being alone with God... the prayer of solitude is the prayer of conversation"), which has been invaluable in guiding me to a path that was unlooked for months ago. Now, I think I see this path, and am courageously going to follow it where it leads... to Belarus and beyond. :)
(a la Buzz Lightyear: "to infinity and beyond!" ;)
Praise God for conversation, in community with others and with Him.