I was not going to blog today … I was going to test the theory of “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” However, I heard the most profound statement this morning that I just wanted to share with you.

“Hope is something that comes from the relationships that people have with one another.”

Think about that for a minute. I have spent a good part of the blogosphere touting relationships and their importance. But this statement elevates their importance even more. And especially in the context of which it was presented.

It was part of an NPR segment about Katrina’s aftermath … recounting “Three Tales of Endurance.” One of those segments featured, “The Shades of Praise,” an interracial gospel group. The 65 black and white members of Shades relied on those relationships to raise money for each other, and to help one another find doctors, housing, schools and new churches. Their co-founder believes the choir’s micro-experience contains a macro-lesson for society when it comes to color barriers.

“One of the ways that I have come to think about segregation in America is that networking has been limited by skin color,” he says. “And in the choir what began to happen was the normal networking that anybody would do when they needed something or wanted something or had something to offer it would just go on except now it was going on across racial lines.”

Again, “Hope is something that comes from the relationships that people have with one another.” What are you doing to build relationships? In the toughest times … and some of your neighbors are in the midst of the toughest times of their lives … hope is all a lot of people have.

In the scope of your business, if you do not have a solid foundation of relationships, you don’t have a solid foundation. Price gives way to value, special offers give way to strategy, flashy gizmos quickly tarnish; it is the relationship that is the glue that holds communities, businesses, I might even suggest civilization, together.

“Hope is something that comes from the relationships that people have with one another.” Believe it. Live it. To coin the Nike idiom, Just Do It.