So I was in this small group and this girl wanted to share something and it turned into this hour and a half long manic chain of what are you saying and where are you going?

There was just no rhyme or reason for any of us to be able to follow it. But she was so passionate about what she

wanted to share and it was really hard. We all just left kind of going, uh, what was that?

And what was the point?

It sounds like my neighbor.

And I think everyone

listening just went,

yep, been in one of those.

So welcome back, friends, to the Ransom Tarr podcast.

And you have the third part of a four-part series on how to tell your story, how to listen to a story.

And we started in the first two episodes

with how to listen to someone's story

that premise of all this is really very simple.

That loving people requires knowing their story.

It really does.

Particularly people with whom you are in some kind of committed something,

whether it's a small group that's committed to spend eight weeks together or

especially if it's a small group that kind of has a longer duration, I would say, even more important, obviously, to just good friendships and certainly within family contact spouses.

Arguably the smallest group with the longest trajectory.

You have to know someone's story.

I remember Longfellow's famous line,

We may meet a man and think him cold when he is merely sad

...