On the news we hear the numbers of

On the news we hear the numbers of the dead, the injured, the dispossessed, and we see haunting photographs of the devastation. But the most riveting, the most compelling are the stories of individual Haitians, and it is their stories that bring us into this terrible experience. Such is the power of hearing stories. Second, we learn from telling stories. When we hear, we are the receiver; when we tell, we are the actor, the one putting all the details together and making the experience coherent for ourselves and for others.