I just moved to my seventh state. Still, I can’t stop thinking about number three.
I don’t know if it’s the palm trees, the general upheaval from moving, or something else I can’t yet put my finger on, but my childhood years in Florida (ages 4–8) have been much on my mind as we’ve been starting our new chapter in California.
I just returned from a StoryCenter intensive facilitators’ training, where as part of my practicum I helped a deeply wise Iraqi refugee bring to life a powerful story from his past. Earlier in the week, I sat in another very tender story circle with seven other educator participants, all of us finding, sharing, and refining accounts of important moments from our own lives. Listening and sharing.
I went in to the workshop planning to tell an early ministry story, about my first big mistake as digital missioner and the redemptive arc it eventually initiated. As is apparently quite common, it turned out that something inside me had other plans.
“Childhood stories are in deep,” one facilitator said. And we can never fully understand the ways they’ve shaped us since.
It’s probably no coincidence that in an unsettled time in my adult life, I found my way to an unsettling childhood story that focused my attention on how easy it is to believe that other people have everything figured out.
As I sit with this surprise story of home and family, with refugee stories so generously shared with novice facilitators, and with the stories of war, violence, and dislocation that reach us faster than we can process them, I am more convinced than ever that our greatest tools for healing and for human connection in this world are deep listening and sharing.
I couldn’t have learned what I learned about myself in that bright and welcoming Denver writers’ workshop without the critical insight of a supportive community. I couldn’t have faced it with courage and curiosity without the inexorable pull of an audience I knew I could trust with my final patchwork of words and pictures.
As we head toward All Saints Day and Election Day, toward Thanksgiving and Advent, toward a future that can feel hopeless and uncertain, I invite you to listen for and share real human stories.
If you can, whenever you can: Ask the questions that matter and commit to listening for answers together. Even when the stories get tough.
Image credit: “Masters of the Universe” by Margot Wood via Flickr (CC BY NC ND 2.0)