Rippling Positive Relationships

Having an identity as a learner includes our ability to grow in our capacity to form, sustain and generate positive relationships. During Chapel this week our Year 6 students shared their thinking about the qualities they hoped for in their friends. Characteristics included being trustworthy, supportive, caring, kind, humourous, loving, honest and loyal. We would hope for  these same qualities in the people we interact with in our families, school, work places and community. We grow habits and characteristics of trustworthiness, encouragement, and supportiveness within our circle of influence through being thoughful in our interactions. Like ripples on a small pond, the characteristics of our communication are the characteristics that ripple out and back as we engage with people. Reflecting and taking small steps to improve our ability to listen, understand and be uplifting in our communication creates a ripple that lifts relationships and ourselves.

God’s encouragement to love our neighbour as ourselves invites us to grow together with each other. Through respecting the dignity of all people and seeing all people as our neighbour we are invited to come graciously into each other’s presence. As we bring love, grace and compassion into our interactions, our hearts hear and soften, our eyes see and the joy of our shared experience ripples and lifts.