Few things are as encouraging as the realization that things can be different and that we have a role in making them so.

Few things are as encouraging as the realization that things can be different and that we have a role in making them so.

Broken stories can be healed. Diseased stories can be replaced by healthy ones. We are free to change the stories by which we live.

We are shaped by stories from the first moments of life, and even before. Stories tell us who we are, why we are here, and what will become of us. Whenever humans try to make sense of their experience, they create a story, and we use those stories to answer all the big questions of life. The stories come from everywhere--from family, church, school, and the culture at large. They so surround and inhabit us that we often don't recognize that they are stories at all, breathing them in and out as a fish breathes water.

Nothing worthwhile is easy.

Stories make it possible for us to be human.

This was football played at the speed of ice hockey and the ball was in play for only 53 minutes of the 90. The Premiership at its highest level is enthralling, edge-of-the-seat stuff, but sometimes it is too fast and frenetic for its own good.