Human relations are so fundamental to healthy living.
We can act out of preprogramming and presumptions.
Taking time to be together, to listen, to understand each other is rather counter-cultural today.
We are so often in a hurry. We tend to communicate with texts and phones.
These can of course be a blessing.
I remember that back in the 1950s, as a young boy, it was by means of a trunk call twice a year that we were able to communicate with our grandparents in Adelaide from Malta.
The other means were aerograms.
I can now communicate for free with my relatives and friends across the globe for nothing by means of technology.
As I visit various communities such as my most recent one this week to the Tiwi Islands, I am reminded to take time.
Over the last four years, I have been here many times. I can feel the bonds becoming strengthened and the affection growing. This also means more honest relationships.
This experience is being repeated across the whole of the NT as I move around.
Stereotyping and generalising can not only distort the truth but even be very destructive.
Making time is about love and respect.
Because we can become used to patterns of behaviour we need the discipline to help us stop and be, to listen and to share, to spend time with, to be contemplatives in action.
Be Still and know that I am God.