It’s official now. Wanting will be staying with me for another year! I’m so glad it worked out this way.
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Last week I made a long-distance call to Wanting to talk about apartment matters. We ended up talking for I think what was at least 30mins. It was good to talk to her again.
I’ve been busy with so many little things in Singapore, and enjoying the time I can spend with family and friends here. But now and then when I read of what my friends in T.O. are doing together, I’m reminded that I miss them, just as I am reminded that I miss my friends in Singapore when I’m in Toronto.
But I’m finding that missing people can be a very peaceful and comforting thing, if I re-examine what ‘missing’ is.
Friendship and community are, first of all, inner qualities allowing human togetherness to be the playful expression of a much larger reality. They can never be claimed, planned or organized, but in our innermost self the place can be formed where they can be received as gifts.
This inner sense of friendship and community sets us free to live a “worldly” life even in the seclusion of a room, since no one should be excluded from our solitude. But it allows us to travel light vast distances because for those who share solitude without fear, all the ground between people has become holy ground. – Henri. J. M. Nouwen, “Reaching Out”
“From now on, wherever you go, or wherever I go, all the ground between us will be holy ground.” That’s what a friend told Henri Nouwen. Those words touched me when I first read them more than a month ago, and I have been holding them in my heart. I hope that I too will have the inner quality that allows those words to be spoken from my heart.
Journey of the Heart 