Afterthought #8 – Healed by Our Stories

Sometimes, often times, I question why I write. The volume usually rises when I’m writing those tender places – fear, loss – and when I doubt that my story has anything to say to the world.  That’s when I turn to the file of quotations in my laptop; here’s some wisdom I found there this morning.

“ I have felt the pain that arises from a recognition of beauty, pain we hold when we remember what we are connected to and the delicacy of our relations.  It is this tenderness born out of a connection to place that fuels my writing.  Writing becomes an act of compassion toward life, the life we so often refuse to see because if we look too closely or feel too deeply, there may be no end to our suffering.  But words empower us, move us beyond our suffering, and set us free.  This is the sorcery of literature.  We are healed by our stories.”  

                                          ~ Terry Tempest Williams 

                                          from “Undressing the Bear”  in An Unspoken Hunger