Re-awakening

This week we're sharing some "Voices from the Summit." Throughout the week participants in the 2008 Summit will be blogging about their experience, their work and their thoughts. This reflection comes from Jean Feraca, Host of "Here on Earth." Ever since I came back from the Summit I've been living in state of grace. It's a little like being born-again.

Imagine having forgotten who you are, what your real name is, why you were sent to earth in the first place, and then being re-awakened. That's what it was like for me. Before I left for the Summit, I had no idea how far I had strayed from my original purpose in creating Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders. Simply stated, it was to show who we are at our best, we humans, and how much we have in common. It was to bring the world a little closer together and to show, over and over again, in as many different ways as possible, that there is only one race on earth, the one we call Human. The best way to do that, of course, is by telling stories, and what better place to tell them than on the radio where "stories make brothers and sisters of us all," as my friend Harold Scheub, who teaches The African Storyteller, has so often stated.

But somewhere along the way, I forgot all that. I began to think that telling stories wasn't important enough. I began to try to be more like other talk show hosts. It was Rich who brought me back to my authentic self.  "When I tell other people about you," he said, "I don't tell them you're a journalist. I tell them you're a poet."  Ah, yes. And then he reminded us that one story connects to another story, and that's how, in the aggregate, altogether we create The Moving Mosaic.

Jean Feraca, Host of Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders