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Friendship, loneliness, and prayer: Praying for “holy curiosity”

Lynne Baab • Wednesday December 27 2023

As we pray about growing in the ability to listen, a helpful and thought-provoking term is “holy curiosity.” Albert Einstein coined that phrase in the 1940s to describe the freedom of inquiry he considered to be important in science education. [1] People of faith have adopted this phrase because it evokes so much about how to connect with others. In order to meet the needs of people we care about, we must be curious about those needs. In order to care for others wisely and well, we need to be curious about the ways to do it most effectively and in...

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Friendship, loneliness, and prayer: Praying to love the poverty in our friends

Lynne Baab • Wednesday December 20 2023

A friend of mine grew up in California’s Central Valley in a uniformly middle-class town. As a teenager in the 1990s, she discovered Mother Teresa’s writings. She was fascinated by Mother Teresa’s emphasis on loving the poor. My friend did a project on Mother Teresa for one of her high school classes. In a conversation with her teacher, my friend said she wondered how to love the poor in her town, where poverty was largely invisible.

Her teacher replied, “Call Mother Teresa and see what she says.”

My friend reached Mother Teresa in India and posed her question. Mother Teresa replied, “Love the...

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Friendship, loneliness, and prayer: Praying about listening roadblocks

Lynne Baab • Tuesday December 12 2023

One of the communication textbooks I consulted for my book on listening used the term “roadblocks to listening.” The authors gave a list of four roadblocks, and sadly, I think there may be more. Today, I’ll focus on the four roadblocks from the textbook. Here’s an overview of the four:

Offering solutions Judging Denying Interrogating [1] I’ll flesh out these four roadblocks with a concrete example: I am talking with my friends who have just moved into a house. It needs more repairs than they anticipated. In addition to all the unpacking and organizing that needs to be done, they have to find contractors. They are...

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Friendship, loneliness, and prayer: Initiating

Lynne Baab • Wednesday December 6 2023

I have always believed that the ability to take initiative is a key friendship skill. When I did the interviews for my book on friendship a decade ago, numerous interviewees told me they attributed times of loneliness to their inability to take initiative. Numerous other interviewees said they sometimes feel they reach out to their friends more than half the time, but they felt it was worth it because of their rich friendships.

If you are one of those people who find it challenging to reach out, this can be a topic for prayer. Not just once, but every day. Who are...

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