stories tie us together.

Stories are one of the few threads that hold one generation to the next. Throughout history civilizations and cultures have been built upon stories, stories of hope, peace and war, as well as stories of the building up of empires, and the desolation of drought and famine. What would we do if we had not inherited certain stories? Moses taught us how to endure the wilderness and to come out of it with wisdom. Ghandi revealed how justice might be established without the use of physical force. Mother Teresa was a living example of compassion as she lived with people the world chose to ignore and Rosa Parks defined courage as she took her rightful place on a bus when others would not acknowledge her humanity. Stories tell us who we are and where we’ve been, we also get a hint as to where we are headed. Stories also mark the passage of time.

I still have the first book my mother read to me when I was a very young child. All these years later, if I get quiet enough I can hear the soft rhythm of my mother’s voice. “Goodnight room…Goodnight moon… Goodnight cow jumping over the moon…”¹ It never failed that by the last jump over the moon my eyes would wobble shut and I was fast asleep for a nap or for the night. This is the way of good stories, whether the story is designed to comfort us or to make us cry or to scare the wits out of us. It is only until we are wiping tears from our eyes, shaking off the chill bumps or being filled with a sense of peace that we know we have just encountered a good story.

Some stories are not told with the eloquence of fine literature but we still remember them. Children are good story tellers even when their words get muddled and turned around; they have the innate ability to create vivid imagery using the simplest descriptions. Storytellers teach that the foundation of a memorable story is the ability to paint a picture with words.