The power of story

Years ago I started attending the National Storytelling Conferences held in various cities in the U.S. It was life changing. Two other things have impacted my life so intensely - realizing God exists and I can sense that in my life and meeting, loving and being loved by Doug. Pretty dramatic, huh? Well, read on, dear readers -

At the storytelling conferences I heard such a huge variety of stories I was high and excited to learn to tell them. I heard stories that were funny, scary, sad, thought provoking, cautionary, religious, true, impossible and stories I could not categorize. They ranged in length from under a minute to three or so hours long. As I spent that first week in my first storytelling conference, I felt a change happening within me.

Fast forward. It's a few weeks before Easter three or four years ago and Lydia, our priest at St. Anne's Episcopal church, has asked me to deliver the homily one Sunday morning. This was exciting for me because I had a chance to share the power of storytelling with all ages. (People tend to think of stories as being for children.)

So that Sunday morning I stood before our well-read, professional, intelligent congregation and told the story of the Three Little Bears. It was met with several amused, tolerant smiles. When I finished I said the obvious, "I know. You're wondering why I'm telling you the story of the three bears shortly before Easter." I then told them why.

In the story of the three bears, Goldilocks invades their house, helps herself (wrongly) to their food and furniture. When she is caught she runs away. (I'll take a minute to tell you that there are different versions of this story. In one version it is an old woman who enters the bears home. When caught, they grab her and hang her from the church steeple as a warning to others to stay out of other people's homes.) I asked the congregation how they thought Goldilocks felt when she woke up and saw the bears standing around looking at her. "Scared" was their answer. Yes, and why? Because she didn't know the end of the story. She didn't know that she'd jump out the window and run home safe and sound.

I then made my way to my point. "How do you think Christ's diciples felt the day he was executed? How do you think his mother, father and brother felt the day after?" Scared, sad, angry were some of the responses. Yes, and why? Many reasons, of course. But they didn't know the end of the story. They didn't know that Jesus would have his life again not only for a time here on earth but eternally in God'd presence.

Flash back to the first storytelling conference. I found myself looking at everything in my life differently. No exaggeration. Everything. Irritations still upset me but I was able to see them as part of the story of my life. They will pass. Nothing new here - we all know that tomorrow is another day and blah blah maxim, blah cliche. At this time, however, I REALized this. I lived according to the FACT that whatever I was going through (from traffic annoyances to being mugged) would be passed, gone in time. This doesn't mean that I was unaffected. This does not mean that I smiled through it. It does mean that it didn't possess me. (Well, the mugging did, somewhat, that was a hard one.) It means that I knew the page in my story would turn and something else would happen next.

I also realized that I was in a huge part the author of my story and I could make things happen. So, I ask you, what are you going through right now? Financial problems? Illness? Heartbreak? Bad grades? Poor job performance? Try to see this as a chapter in a novel. Yes, it's happening. Yes, it's ugly, or difficult or whatever. Keep turning the pages. Keep moving forward through it looking for the way out and the next chapter. It works and it's powerful.

Do I still get crabby? Yes. Do I still overreact? Yes. This attitude does not fix everything, it makes everything an experience necessary for the story.

I'm ending this more abruptly than I want to but my parents are on their way over and I must study some Russian today, take the self-study take home test and learn about 5,000 words today. So . .