"Stories are equipment for living." Kenneth Burke
Imagine you are writing a saga, a rich and multi-layered tale that is filled with intriguing scenes and fascinating characters. Your story resonates with insights about childhood and families, about friendships and intimacy. It delves into the issues of betrayal, joy, fear, and love as well as longing and loss. The tale you are spinning details the ultimate defeat or triumph of the human spirit. Your task is an enormous one and has huge implications for your own life and as well as for the lives of the people it touches.
You are in the middle of inventing this story right now, even as you start to read this paragraph. You career as a storyteller began when you were born. Whether you consciously claim this role as author or not, it is yours. Every day that you draw breath you remain hard at work constructing the story you tell yourself about everything you do and everything that happens to you.
From the time you awake each morning until you fall asleep each night, you construct this narrative in your mind, turning out scene after scene, adding and removing characters, and layering one subplot on top of another. You are not the only one doing this. Everyone you know is authoring his or her own story, and you are a character in those tales too. Our storymaking is part of the human condition. The reason we do it is to find meaning in the raw material of our life experience.
Sharing our stories is part of what it means to be human as well. When we speak or write our stories and listen to or read the stories of others, we become connected. Story sharing provides us with a sense of belonging, solace, and hope. We become aware that we are a part of something greater than ourselves.
"The very act of story telling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of the narrative, is by definition holy….We tell stories because we can’t help it. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they fill the silence death imposes. We tell stories because they save us." James Carroll
Most young writers begin by penning tales of unrelenting angst and despair. The writers whose names we remember, the writers whose words we read over and over again, outgrow that jaded perspective. They awaken us to options we didn’t know we had. They open windows to new ways of looking at ourselves and the world. They inspire us.
"If we see our life as a trivial story, we fall easily into inertia and defeat. Seeing our life as a larger story puts us back on our feet and helps us get on with living. And seeing our life as a great story can fill us with the passion for the possible, give us access codes to a new range of possibilities, and grant us a mythic life." Jean Houston
Our lives are filled with miracles. Too often we’re too busy or stressed to be aware of them. Writing helps us to slow down and notice those luminous moments, to affirm our connection to the Greater Story. Make a list of the miracles you’ve witnessed and experienced from the obvious to the subtle.
Write about a time you triumphed over adversity, a time you felt the presence of grace or unconditional love in your life, or perhaps a time when you found it in yourself to forgive another person you never thought you could forgive. Write about a random act of kindness from a stranger or a time you felt moved to reach out to another person. Don’t worry about characters, plot, spelling or grammar. Let your heart tell the story, rather than your head.
Once you’ve put your story on paper, go ahead and polish it. Now summon the courage to give your gift of story to another person or a whole group of people. You’ve nothing to lose but your isolation.