(This week’s quote.)

Several years ago, at the insistence of three young adults, I started sending out a weekly quote to an ever growing list of high school students, college students and young adults.  The idea grew out of conversations we shared as we sat on the floor of a church in Buchanan County, Virginia. We were there for a week working each day helping to repair the homes of neighbors who lived in the surrounding hollars. While the work we did was important, what was equally important were the conversations we had each evening. Conversations which focused on faith and community and responsibility and what I think is Jesus’ most provocative question: Who is my neighbor?  Sometimes the springboard for our evening conversations was a quote selected by a member of the group who shared it with everyone in the morning and then helped to launch our conversations in the evening. On our way home from that trip, these young adults said to me, “You have to find a way to help us continue to the conversation.” which led to the weekly quote I send out.

Of course the conversation doesn’t continue in the same way it does when you are all in one confined space sharing a similar experience and thoughts and ideas are tossed back and forth across the room. Now the group is spread out across the country and, at times, around the world, but the conversation does continue. From me here to you there. In local high schools. On college campuses. In New York and California and Washington, DC.  It continues each time any one of us pauses for a moment to be reminded of values and hopes and dreams which are sometimes forgotten in the day-in, day-out routines and responsibilities of life, but which stand at the very center of who we are.

Which leads me to this.
We all need those reminders.
And to be a part of those life shaping conversations.
Once a week.
Every day.
A moment ago.
A moment from now.
So, in the off chance you are a bit like me with a tendency to get distracted or to forget:
This question:
Where will you find your next reminder?