Seek What is True

3 things ❤️‍🔥 Lighting Me Up ❤️‍🔥 this week:

stories

As I prepare to coach in the Story Skills Workshop (come join me!), these words from The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett jumped out:

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something deferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal... [Reading] was anonymous; it was shared; it was common.

love

I recently wrote a piece about the difference between Fear and Hope. I didn't publish it for a while because I was sitting with whether the word I really meant was Love, not Hope. These words from the comedian Dick Gregory, which I read in the terrific Illustrated Black History by George McCalman, helped me see the truth:

“Love is man’s natural endowment, but he doesn't know how to use it. He refuses to recognize the power of love because of his love of power.”

Also totally loved this from Mr. Gregory: “Once I accept injustice, I become injustice.”  💥

truth

And finally - but definitely not least - the dedication from the excellent Killing Rage by bell hooks has been playing on a constant loop in my head and heart:

i keep the letters that i write to you in a folder with a postcard attached. it is a reproduction of the image of a black man and woman in south africa in 1949 walking down a road side by side - the caption reads “seek what is true” - it is that seeking that brings us together again and again, that will lead us home.

❤️