Spiritual empowerment is evidenced in our lives by our willingness to tell ourselves the truth, to listen to the truth when it's told to us, and to dispense truth as lovingly as possible, when we feel compelled to talk from the heart.

Story is the mother of us all, for we become who we say we are.

History is what scholars and conquerors say happened; story is what it was like to live on the ground.

Most of us have developed a fairly extensive vocabulary for describing pain, as though the journal were a doctor requiring much detail to make the correct diagnosis. The roundness of the spiritual journey cannot be expressed without developing an equally extensive vocabulary for talking to ourselves and others about the nature of wonder, joy, ecstasy, love, transfiguration.

With compassion, we see benevolently our own human condition and the condition of our fellow beings. We drop prejudice. We withhold judgment.

This unceasing interplay between experience and narrative is a uniquely human attribute. We are the storytellers, the ones who put life into words.

Meaning drives us from despair to wonder, from confusion to clarity, from hesitance to confidence. And the only place to find meaning is in the importance of small things.