You and I are hardwired for stories.
We tell them. Listen to them. We read them, and then we watch them when the stories we read turn into the movies we love.
As Daniel Nayeri wrote in his bestseller, Everything Sad Is Untrue, “Every story is the sound of a storyteller begging to stay alive.”
Ok. Maybe you don’t tell stories in hopes that people won’t kill you, but you and I both tell stories hoping to keep something alive, right? Maybe it’s simply the attention of the person listening, or something deeper, like a memory too good to forget, or a pain too deep to forgive…yet.
I’m sure we could all come up with a lot more reasons we love telling and re-telling stories, but for now, may I simply offer two? We tell stories to make sense, and to make sure.
First, we tell stories to try to make sense of things we’ve experienced, of the things we’ve heard about, of tragedies and triumphs that seem just a little too hard or good to believe.
“Can you believe…?”
“Have I told you…?”
So many of the stories we tell begin like that, and all of us have at one time or another wanted to say, “Yes! You’ve told me that exact story soooooo many times. Not again!!”
When we understand that people tell stories in an attempt to make sense, then what we might say instead is, “You have, and if you need to tell it again, I’m here to help you process what you went through.”
Stories help us cope, process. They help us put the unspeakable into words, and help us put another day’s distance between what happened to us then, and who we want to be now.
Job’s friends were just what he needed, until they stopped listening to his story. It’s an honor to hear another’s story, and true friends don’t take those moments lightly. Of course, I’m writing these words and feeling bad at the same time because I am not always the one who leans in and says, “Tell me again.” But I want to be. I so hope to be the safe place where the stories of others can be told, and retold, and retold.
The second reason we tell stories? To make sure. Storytelling helps us make sure that the stories are correct, and also that the stories are collected.
At one point this week, as The B99 and I were visiting with her mom, I found myself sitting in a room where I was outnumbered five to one. Not only five females to one male, but five family members to one outsider.
I don’t use the word outsider because they treat me like one. They don’t. But because they’re all in the same family bloodline, and they know all the same stories, I felt like I’d stepped into the book club toward the end of the discussion.
But the discussion was fascinating. Sure, Wendy probably thought she saw my eyes glaze over a time or two, but that’s only because the details can sometimes make my head spin (was it her mom’s mom’s mom that did that, or her aunt twice removed on her dad’s side??). When we get together with her side of the family, it’s like watching a live taping of The History Channel, and something surprising happens: the stories get corrected by the family.
When stories aren’t told, they can morph into versions that we prefer, or that make us look better, or that come across more sanitized than they actually were. Maybe a detail was left out that added another dimension, or a detail was made up that took away from the trustworthiness of it. The community corrects the stories, and then collects them. They make sure that they are told again and again. The sixth chapter says to tell the stories as we sit at home, as we walk along the road, as bedtime stories and over the breakfast table (Deut. 6:7).
Later in that same chapter (see verse 20 and on), God’s people were instructed to use altars and collections of stones as springboards into storytelling. Years later, a king would echo that command with these words:
One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty— and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They tell of the power of your awesome works— and I will proclaim your great deeds. They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
(Psalms 145:4-7, emphasis mine)
Tell. Speak. Proclaim. Sing.
God’s plan for us? Truth told through stories passed down from one generation to the next. Stories told so many times that the hearer would quietly mouth the words in sync with the one speaking. Stories that would reignite the fires that burned in the desert and bring them roaring to life again in the hearts of a generation as they moved from listeners to tellers.
Why is there is such a massive exodus of the next generation in church today? I’m sure there are many reasons, but might I suggest the one that haunts me the most?
The church has stopped telling stories, and a generation wired for them has found a new narrative in a culture that is more than happy to captivate them with one that seems more compelling.
Fighting the culture won’t bring them back, but telling the stories about God’s awesome works might.
“Tell them the old, old story of Jesus and His love.”
