[faith & trust]

"What is the most memorable conversation you've had with a stranger?"

"A couple weeks ago, I interviewed to be a Catholic missionary. It's kinda under wraps--no one really knows. I went to this interview weekend really spur of the moment, I didn't necessarily have any intention behind it besides going to have a good weekend with some good Catholic people and I was excited to meet new people. Regardless, I went to the interview and it was a really deep interview--not that you have to spill your entire life story out to them, but they do want to know a lot about you. They want to know what makes you tick, your qualifications, things like that. It was kinda cool that although I didn't know the people that were interviewing me, at all, we shared our faith. And I think it was more than that--we shared passion, too. I just think that if your passion is strong enough, whatever it is, you can talk comfortably about it with anyone. Even though they were asking really deep questions, like 'what's your biggest fault?' and 'what is something you completely regret?', I felt so much comfort in the fact that these strangers in front of me share a common faith and a common passion--there was just trust in the air. It was really comforting, and really affirming."

"When was that last time you felt that sense of trust?"

"This summer, I worked at a summer camp on adult staff. On the adult staff, there were four other people I really bonded with, and I built a lot of trust in them. It was a good, uplifting, healthy group. We had good confrontations with each other--we would fill each other up and uplift each other, and then we would go beyond our little clique to reach the rest of the camp. It was a beautiful, uplifting summer."

"Do you miss it?"

"Yes."