Wherever we are, we can call for and create these kinds of settings for authentic dialogue. This is the seedbed of social change. In a voiced community, we all flourish. But it's not easy. Revolutionary patience and persistence is required. It can be messy, it is unpredictable, and change, especially structural change takes time - time and leadership and the will of an engaged community. What is needed? In a word, courage.

Despair shows us the limit of our imagination. Imaginations shared create collaboration, collaboration creates community, and community inspires social change.

I have a sequence to my creative life. In spring and fall, I am above ground and commit to community. In the summer, I'm outside. It is a time for family. And in the winter, I am underground. Home. This is when I do my work as a writer - in hibernation. I write with the bears.

Abundance is a dance with reciprocity - what we can give, what we can share, and what we receive in the process.

The question I'm constantly asking myself is: what are we afraid of? I think it's important for us to follow that line of fear, because that is ultimately our line of growth.

I write to make peace with the things I cannot control. I write to create fabric in the world that often appears black and white. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change.

At the heart of Mormonism is a high regard for community. That is its strength. I have great respect for that.