Today’s Excerpt:

Human beings have been returning to their favorite stories for thousands of years.

Before the time of TVs and video games, people gathered together — often around a campfire — and told stories about heroes, gods, history, the creation of the world, and more.

People viewed these stories as so important that they went to great lengths to pass them on, sometimes memorizing them generation after generation and eventually copying them down by hand.

Today, many of these ancient stories seem strange. They talk about angry gods, animals that can speak, and so on. They also, unfortunately, often carry many harmful views from the cultures that produced them, including the belief that the gods favored certain people over everyone else on Earth.

However, many of these stories also contain timeless insights that can help us find meaning and connection to something beyond ourselves.

This is partly why some of these stories survived the test of time.

Each day this week, you’ll get to explore a sample of timeless wisdom.

Discuss:

• What stories matter most to you? What stories have you returned to again and again?