It comforts me that I’m not alone. All sorts of people—elderly church-goers, prisoners, parents, teenage moms, recovering addicts, business executives, homeless people—are eager to put words to their spiritual journeys. Just last week during announcements at a Quaker meeting, a woman in her fifties practically leapt into the air: “I’m finally writing my memoir,” she said. “It’s amazing! I want to find other people to write with me and talk about it.” I recognized in her excitement the impulse that drives us language-lovers to work with our life stories. People seek continuity between the inner world and the outer, between their past selves and who they are now, and especially between what they claim to believe and how they live.Writing helps bring about this continuity. And writing becomes a means to engage that creative force within and beyond us, the sacred presence that lends us life.
from “Writing the Sacred Journey” by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
