Stories and Compassion

From today's article in FP: "'Everything is held together with stories,' the writer Barry Lopez once said, 'that is all that is binding us together, stories and compassion.'"

That quote itself is the story that might hold us together.

The way to empathy and solidarity is not the Big Idea or Great Work or Grand Theory. The way past the bigotry of xenophobia that destroys us all, is revealing, listening to, and hearing our stories. Only then do we feel the sufferings, the joys, the aspirations that create solidarity. Solidarity in the struggle for life, for meaning, and for respect.

I sometimes despair that I cannot communicate the Big Idea or do the Great Work or design the Grand Theory that will save our universe. But now I remember that salvation is simply a matter of sharing my story with the next person I meet and hearing hers. That's it.