Telling the Stories

The Grammy nominations have been announced. When society celebrates movies, Broadway plays, TV series, and even news programs, society is celebrating the telling of stories. This storytelling has fascinated me this Christmas season. Think about the stories told at Christmas. Not only do we celebrate the Nativity, but we also tell Dickens’s Christmas Carol (in a variety of formats and actors), Clemens’s T’was the Night before Christmas, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, Charlie Brown, and more.

The stories make us who we are. They influence our culture, they make our core values, and they change our ideas.

Stories are part of our being from the time we are born. Some doctors would also say that we hear stories while in utero. Regardless, parents read to their children at bedtime and for entertainment. Even the videos and TV children watch are couched in story form. We study the classic stories in school – Romeo and Juliet, A Tale of Two Cities, for example. When we study history, we are studying the story of our ancestors and heroes. We read, we watch, we study stories.

As I attempt to write the stories that God places into my mind, I need to remember that the story is first. It’s the story that teaches, entertains, and changes us. It’s the story that we celebrate and tell and retell.