Bright Balloons

The stories in this book are born of living, of discovering what it means to be in relationship to other people, creatures, and the planet itself. They are stories of growing up, becoming, loving, losing, and moving on. They are stories of faith, gratitude, finding one's way in the world, discernment, commitment, vocation and daring to be who one is called to be. They are poignant, funny, revealing, and deeply personal, running the gamut of emotions from fear to love, despair to joy, loss to wholeness, and everything in between. Memories are effervescent, bubbling up through folds of time; they are also evanescent, and can too easily disappear forever if they are not spoken or written down. The stories in this volume offer their readers glimpses of both the mundane and the extraordinary ways in which life unfolds. Experiences shape memories, but do memories play a role in becoming? Is the self I am today the same self who once skipped over cracks on the sidewalk and adopted a kitten at a school bus stop? The future may not be ours to see, but can stories from the past help illuminate future possibilities? Do memories help the supposedly impossible melt into the merely improbable? Stories are important, including-perhaps especially-those that seem bizarre, uncanny, and peculiar. Wildly wonderful experiences of the sacred and the mysterious, things we seldom talk about with anyone, are common to us all, which we would realize if we dared to share them with one another. The stories in this book contain truths deeper than the words through which they are told. Perhaps their radiance will shine forth to spark new insights into what it means to you, the reader, to have spent time becoming human in our tiny corner of the vast universe.