Sometimes when we are feeling isolated, what we need is someone who can mirror us back to ourselves—who can echo back our feelings or share a story to remind us that someone else struggles with the same issues, that we are not, after all, out in the desert alone.
Who mirrors you back to yourself?
We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, “Blessed are they that mourn,” and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.
― C.S. Lewis
How has your own grief opened you to compassion for the grief of others?
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light…
—Mary Oliver
When are you at your most blazingly brilliant?
Across the ages we humans have loved to capture our own images, to paint them on walls or vases or canvass, or to preserve our faces on film or digital media. We want to hold the moment, to be able to look back at ourselves and to have those who come after us hold our memories.
What family pictures do you particularly treasure?
Columbus Day is properly celebrated in the United States as a national day of mourning, a day to remember and repent from all the violence against Native Americans that began with Columbus and continued across the centuries. Perhaps we can begin with listening.
Which Native voices inform how you see the world?
