Many of us have lived the joys and failures of communication.  I feel words are to be treasured and used with care.  I’m not always seeing that right now and I think we can do better.  As a journalist, I feel it’s my job to keep people engaged in knowing about the world around them.  And for those who have given up because of biased reporting or the weight of difficult headlines, showing them how to step back into the world of current events mindfully with sources that are to be trusted.

So stories about the world around us can be tough, just gut-wrenching.  But that’s okay, because if we dig a little deeper we can find the precious spark of good, of compassion, of faith in most any situation.  And a hopeful storyteller does just that, every time, without fail.  For me it’s in my DNA.  Sometimes it’s obvious, like the tornado I once covered in rural Georgia where almost an entire roof was ripped off a sweet lady’s house.  But somehow enough trusses remained that a ceiling fan was still hanging and from that ceiling fan’s chain was a guardian angel finial, an ornament that inspired she and me both.  Other times, a hopeful storyteller must dig much, much deeper.