Witnessing the Self

By Joanna Penn Cooper

Faith is found here, not in a destiny raiding and parceling out knowledge and the earth, but in a people who, person by person, believes itself.  Do you accept your own gestures and symbols?  Do you believe what you yourself say?  When you act, do you believe what you are doing?

–Muriel Rukeyser, The Life of Poetry

How might writing memoir and personal essay help us as we claim our role as observers and shapers of our own lives?  On a simple level, when I think ab...