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Good morning. When Primo Levi lay awake at night in a dormitory in Auschwitz he was haunted by a recurrent nightmare. He was back home with his family, recounting his experiences, but one by one his audience drifted away, unable or unwilling to hear what he said. His greatest fear was that no one would listen to his story. That powerful image has rested with me over these past two weeks as the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster have been given the opportunity to tell their stories. These have been desperate, heart-rending, tragic memories of a dreadful night, often hard to hear and intolerable to imagine. People have been able to express anger, grief and despair. They have been able to honour and celebrate people who might otherwise have been forgotten. And most importantly no one has drifted away. The stories have been heard. Listening to a story is perhaps the main way in which we lend someone dignity. History is full of instances in which powerful people have imposed their authority by denying the stories of the powerless. Such has been the experience of women, of B.A.M.E people, of the poor. Even today the silence of the stories of the people of Yemen is its own testimony to the suffering they are enduring. Today Christians keep the Feast of the Visitation, a day which is all about stories. Mary, fresh from the revelation that she is pregnant with Jesus, rushes to find Elizabeth her cousin to share the news. In the eyes of the powerful the stories of these women, both desperately poor and living under occupation, would seem trivial. Very few would take the time to bother to listen. But as they each tell what God has done for them, they find an overwhelming joy, for they see how their stories are part of God’s story of how he is going to save his world. From telling each other stories, these women discover their dignity, their preciousness, their beauty. Mary and Elizabeth demonstrate how story takes us to the very heart of human identity. So to liberate a person must mean setting them free to tell their story. When I worked in central London, I often felt powerless in ministering meaningfully to the many vulnerable adults who came seeking support. Eventually I worked it out. I didn’t need to come up with quick-fix solutions. I just needed to listen. I needed to stop and pay close attention to whatever story they wanted to tell me. So Sir Martin Moore-Bick has done something very precious in starting the Grenfell Tower public inquiry by handing over to the victims. The best way to honour a person is to take time to listen to their story.