Trust is "Here"

All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.
(Julian of Norwich)

It was a miserable get-together of colleagues who had been trying to figure out the world as a team for a while. One colleague was really sick and faced a life-saving operation, another colleague was nearing retirement and seemed a little out of gas. One colleague was just about to be shipped over to a time-zone 12 hours away to step in for the colleague who was only weeks away from resigning, while another colleague was taking over a region that would be under financial attack for years. I tried to say something uplifting but it fell flat. Still, in response, one colleague simply raised his arm up high and said, "trust is here".

It may not have been the most eloquent speech ever written, but this little symbol of affirmation and support was enough for me anyway to plough years of good-will and hard work into making this team work. I was not in charge of the group but I was providing the strategy based on our combined insights, so I had professional as well as spiritual motives to succeed. "Trust is here" was a convenient reminder when doubts resurfaced. I would simply mentally replay this scene over and over again until I believed it myself. And there were many problems that hit us in coming years, as well as long stretches of miscommunication and confusion. But all this didn't matter in the end, the group stuck together through everything.


When it comes to the interaction of people, the theory of positive thinking definitely works as I have experienced it on many occasions myself. Just as it is written in the New Testament:

Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. (Matthew 17:20)

Positive thinking does become self-fulfilling; trust your friends and they will rally behind you. Doubt a colleague, and he will disappoint already low expectations. Luckily for the group I was working for at the time, when we needed it most, trust was already way up there.