Real-Life Communication
Women religious understand that love, humility, gentleness, simplicity
and joy characterize their relationship with one another. But there are many
challenges to living in community and enjoying its blessings.
The ability
to respect the uniqueness of each sister and to relate well to others is very
important for women religious.
Communication skills are vitally important
with living with anyone. Like in a family, sisters need to constantly be aware
of how their words and actions affect others. We all grew up in different
situations and with different families, so what one of us thinks is "normal"
another may think is different or strange, says Sister Linda Herndon.
You
are living life as a woman religious with 15 women of all ages. Even though
you love being part of this close-knit community, you are independent and
like the opportunity to make choices.
It's decided that you need a
new chair for the living room. You have your own ideas about what you'd like
to purchase, but there are another 14 different ideas of what kind of chair
would be most useful and pleasing to look at. You never knew that buying one
chair could be so hard!
How can you decide as a group what kind of
chair to buy?