The Magic of Storytelling
“With many such parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it.” - Mark 4:33
“Storytelling connects us.” - Joyce Morgan.
My whole life has been about stories, to one degree or another. It started with my dad and my grandaddy. My granddaddy told my dad stories. They both told me stories. They always started their stories the same way, Once upon a time, way back in the mountains.
These stories gave shape to my imagination, and my imagination gave shape to my life. The stories they told me didn’t always happen, but they were always true. East Alabama and Georgia mountain versions of the Brothers Grimm. Parables of good and evil, of right and wrong - reminders to tell the truth, even when it costs you something, because nothing costs more than a lie.
When I got older, my grandma and I would visit my grandaddy’s grave. For more than 20 years, we walked that cemetery together. She told me the stories of the people buried there. They were my stories - relatives, kinfolk, heroes, and villains of her own time, helping me to make sense of my time. We all have a story. I sure hope someone will tell a little piece of my story to a curious 15-year-old as they stand over my grave.
Along with my life, storytelling has given shape to my vocation too. In some sense, my vocation IS storytelling. I’m a priest in the Episcopal Church, a minister in God’s church universal. What is my job, except to tell the story of God’s love? What is my job, except to help other people tell their story of God’s love?
Jesus spoke in parables. He told stories. They mean something different every time I read them. Sometimes I am the prodigal son; other times, I am the dutiful and unforgiving son; I sometimes yearn to be the father, prodigal with love and forgiveness. The parables of Jesus are a way for him to communicate something deep and real about the way God loves us. There is a reason that many of the parables start out, “The kingdom of God is as if…”. We cannot imagine a kingdom ruled by love and forgiveness. Jesus has to tell us stories so that we can wonder what it would be like to believe in such a kingdom.
LaGrange is a town full of stories. Every town has them, but small towns often tell them best, or at least most vividly. We feel like we know just about everybody, and so whatever details I don’t know about your life, I am liable to make up a story to fill in the gaps. British philosopher Alain de Botton said this about the stories we tell about each other - “To love someone is to be generous in one’s interpretation of another person.” In other words - since we can’t know anyone fully, are the stories we make up to fill in the gaps - are they generous or not; are they loving or not?
LaGrange is full of stories in another way, too. Each year, during the first full weekend in March, we host the Azalea Storytelling Festival. All things are interrupted during this pandemic (think of the stories we will tell about this time!). The Azalea is no different. Typically spread out over three days, with many storytellers and audiences in the hundreds, this year, the festival is on a single day, with a single teller. But the stories do go on!
Donald Davis will tell twice on March 6, 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm. You can get in-person and live stream tickets here: LSPARTS.org/tickets/index.html.
-http://www.lsparts.org/azalea/2019%20ASF%20Festival.html
I had a delightful conversation about storytelling with Joyce Morgan, one of the Azalea Storytelling Festival co-founders. For 25 years now, Joyce has been among the chief architects of this wonderful event. I asked her why she has been so willing to devote such energy and passion to this over the years. I know the dedication and the hard work that goes into these kinds of things, and you don’t stay committed for a quarter-century for a simple cultural event, or even something nice for your community. Years of dedication like this happen when someone is serving a purpose, serving something far beyond themselves.
Joyce began explaining her dedication by telling me how this year’s festival will differ from the year’s past. Only 50 people will be socially distanced in the room with this year’s teller, Donald Davis. She talked about how even 50 different people will hear 50 different stories. And this isn’t a sign of an ineffective storyteller. Quite the opposite! I know this from my own sermons. At my best, when I have been able to hear and understand what God is trying to say, then 100 people in a little church hear their own sermon, often hearing things that I never said! They hear the sermon they need to hear. That is God at work. When Donald Davis is weaving a tale, each hearer will attach themselves to different parts of the story, will understand their own life through a new lens. Donald’s story becomes our story. And we leave that place telling our own story in a new and different way.
And this is the point of storytelling. Joyce elaborated, “The goal is that hearing stories helps you tell your own. You don’t listen to a story; you see it unfold. You internalize it. It shifts from being the teller’s story to being your own. Listening is just entertainment. Internalizing the story is the goal.”
That is a lofty goal. The storyteller and the listener both have to show up ready for that kind of work. In the hands of a skilled teller, sometimes even the most hardened listener will open up. Think of Jesus talking to the young lawyer. Jesus tells a story about an injured traveler, aided by a hated Samaritan. “Who was a neighbor to the traveler?” Jesus asked. “The one who helped,” the young lawyer says through gritted teeth. Without a story, the lawyer would never have acknowledged anything good about a Samaritan. By means of a well-told story, it was impossible to deny.
Stories connect us. Me to my grandparents, you to your neighbor. Stories connect us across time and across the world. Consider our pandemic. We recently passed a horrific milestone: half a million dead in this country alone. Experts tell us that numbers on that scale are impossible to make sense of the truth. What to do? How do we hold onto our humanity in the face of individual lives becoming statistics?
We tell stories. We listen for their stories, for the stories of loss that break our hearts. In the face of that kind of loss, a broken heart is perhaps our only way to connect. Stories help break open our hearts and help to heal them.
Stories connect us. I still delight when my wife tells me a part of her story I haven’t heard before. I always wonder, ‘How long until I stop learning something new about this person?’. Every time I hear a new story from her, it means that our connection is growing deeper.
Stories connect us. Stories can also be used to drive us further apart. We tell stories about other people; people we imagine are far different from us. Democrats and Republicans. Baptists and Episcopalians. Citizen and foreigner. The best stories are the ones that keep us curious about ourselves and others. The worst stories are the ones that make us think we know the other, once and for all.
What story are you telling? What story are you telling about yourself and about others? What story are you telling with your life? Whatever your story, you can learn to tell it better by listening to others’ stories and listening to master tellers like Donald Davis. Listening to good stories keeps us curious, makes us wonder how their story might be like our story.
We all have a story of God’s love, whether we know it or not. Listen to the stories all around you. Listen close enough, and you’ll hear that story of love. Listen to a master teller like Donald Davis, and I bet you’ll see how your story is just as rich as all the tales he tells.
Practice telling your story. If you don’t know how to start, try one of these on for size: Once upon a time, way back in the mountains OR The kingdom of God is as if…