If you look at the category tags on most of our blog posts, the word you will most often see is “inspiration.” There is a reason for that.
The word “inspiration” comes from the Latin inspirare “blow into, breathe upon.” The meaning is deeper than that, though: it means to breath life into. We get a sense of this in the Hebrew Scriptures: “And the Lord G-d formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) The Hebrew word is ר֫וּחַ, ruach, breath, wind, spirit.
So, our inspiration posts — whether an ancient folktale or a story from today’s newspaper — are a way we breathe life into compassion by giving examples of what it looks like when it walks among us in human form.
