Earlier this month I spent time with the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee and gave the keynote for their 54th annual luncheon. For more than half a century, these faith leaders and practitioners from different traditions have been coming together to build relationships and connections in good times, knowing that sometimes we encounter bumps in the road. And when those bumps occur, we can navigate them more effectively when we have spent the time to build a foundation of trust.

When I first moved into our Bloomington, MN home on Little Road (the one we sold when we launched into van life in 2020) I remember a neighbor stopping by and encouraging me to be a part of the block parties the neighborhood coordinated every first Friday of the month.

He said, “You should come. Do you know why?”

I had a pretty good idea why but I wanted to hear it in his words.

“You should come, because someday, your kids are going to do something stupid.” (His words, not mine.) “I don’t know what it will be…maybe they will ride their bikes through my flower beds. Maybe they will throw a ball that breaks my window. Maybe they will ring my doorbell and run away.”

Fair, I thought. And he went on.

“So someday they are going to do something stupid, and when they do, I don’t want that to be the first time I meet you.”

It was an ah-ha moment for that younger version of myself. Life is hard. Things happen. Tensions arise. It’s natural with the complexities of the world and with human emotion thrown into the mix. But if we take the time to build relationships in the good times….if we do the hard work of putting a solid foundation in place…when those difficult things happen, we will have the tools to address it. We will have the history of shared experiences and common values to help us navigate the hard times together.

These folks were doing the hard work. They were celebrating the shared experience of following a spiritual path. They were recognizing and honoring their unique differences. And they were committing themselves to staying at the table and learning how to support one another and be better together.

The previous month, I had traveled to Milwaukee to do a studio series with them and we asked, “How does your faith tradition give you strength?” AS always, it was fun to see them see themselves as we shared the stories back to them.