... although the past can teach us a great deal about the human experience of reverence, we will not find our own authentic language of reverence only there. The call for a language of reverence is in the end a call to move forward, not backward. It is a call for creativity, for experiment, a demand that we speak the truth as we know it. It summons us to entrust to one another the stories of those moments that left us with a lump in the throat or a song in the heart; those vigil nights in the hospital that ended in an embracing peace, or the hours of soul searching that ended in remorse and a resolution to do better next time. It is an invitation to build from the wrecked timbers of old ritual the new structures of ceremony that can give shape to our reverence in the most awesome, meaning- laden moments of our lives.