"I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community."
- Janet Mock, "Redefining Realness"
Whomever Janet Mock may be, she is correct. Storytelling is a lost art, and an art that is connected to our very humanness.
I am, by nature, a storyteller. My undergraduate major was journalism: professional storytelling. No matter wat you might have heard I did NOT major in journalism to avoid math Okay, that was an added bonus of my major field of study, as have dyscalculia and HATE math. I love words-- and words are powerful.
At church, I spent five wonderful program years serving the parish's youngest people in Godly Play {TM} a Christian education program that uses both sacred storytelling time and Montessori-based classroom techniques. I loved this work: preparing the stories each week was a spiritual practice for me--a practice that made me look at beloved Bible stories with a new lens.
As " People of the Book" our faith centers around stories that were passed down and can be traced back to our early Jewish ancestors in the Middle East.
As part of the EfM { Education for Ministry } program, students are required to share their " spiritual autobiography-- how they see where God acted in their life--each year during the four-year extended learning program out of The University of the South. This is hard work. Vulnerability is hard, but doing so in a safe environment allows for members of the seminar group to understand their classmates' perspectives. During my EfM journey-- in which I went through three churches over seven years { that is another story entirely} my story changed.
Stories are fluid.
My social media-- and the social media of others--can be a means to tell our personal stories. Since we are all human and--- thanks be to God-- different, our stories can {and will} make others scratch their heads in confusion. If we are not careful with the words we choose on social media, others can misconstrue our words and interpret them in a way that is not what we intend.
At the same time, each of us own our stories and should tell them as we see fit. I'll repeat: our stories belong to us and us alone. We choose how, when and to whom we tell parts of these stories. My blog is a means by which I share my story with the world. No one must read it{As far as I know, my words are not required reading for any college course.}
Other people's stories should be held in strict confidence. Not long ago someone blessed me with a part of their story that is hard for them to share. I thanked this person for trusting me with this information and assured them that it stays with me.
Tell your story as you see fit. Listen to others' stories without judgement. Don't gossip. Assume nothing.
We ALL are storytellers.
Amen.
Sarah Beth McCarren
May 20, 2023
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