I grew up in a family that tells stories. We are a people of stories – stories of our ancestors dating back to a castle in Scotland in the 1400’s.

  • Stories of the early days in the United States and northeastern Kansas.

  • Stories of an old mill in Kansas City – Watts Mill – with Stubbin Watts, who played fiddle on the weekends for dances on the mill floor. My brother has one of the mill stones from that mill and I have the other.

  • Stories of the University of Kansas, and my aunt Marlee being Phog Allen’s secretary.

  • Stories of about my great grandmother and her arthritis, which put her in a wooden wheelchair as a middle-aged woman.

  • Stories about my grandmother shooting pigeons off the barn in order to cook protein during the Great Depression.

These stories are rich and create the ground upon which my family tree grew and thrived. Eric often quips about my family lore that some of it might even be true!

Bishop Michael Curry, in his book “Love is the Way”, presents storytelling as the solution for the divisions we have in our country currently – whether those divisions are socioeconomic, political, or racial. He says that we are in a time of extremism; a time of distrust; and that we are under siege. But that God is not finished with us yet! That we need to move forward with a voice that says, No more. We choose love! We choose community! We need to heal. And the way to do that is to slow down, listen to each other’s truth; and that the way to do that is to listen to one another’s stories.

Did you know that seminaries hold graduate courses on storytelling? Not 1 credit hour seminars…. No! 3 graduate credit hours – a full time seminary course, just like Hebrew Bible or New Testament – on storytelling. That is because stories tell truth in a way people can hear it… sometimes they tell truth that people are not ready to hear. Stories give people power. Stories are a conversation of the heart – a song of the soul – that speak the language of life. They have the capacity to move us to deeper levels of our selves. And stories – like songs – allow for the communion of spirits. Jesus knew this and used stories to tell truths that the people were not ready to hear as truths simply spoken outright.

What many of us many not realize consciously is that we can be intentional about the stories we tell as well as the stories we consume. It is important to expose ourselves to stories from those who agree with us and stories from those who disagree with us. By doing this, we expose ourselves to a broader picture of the world. Imagine how the world might change if people of different races, politics, or other differences met together once a week to share a meal, worship, or play a game!

Here is the story that Bishop Curry shares in his book about how stories can change us and our world…

You may remember the oil pipeline being built just south of the Sioux Standing Rock Reservation in 2016. Bishop Curry was invited to make a pastoral visit there to see the sacred burial grounds and the reservation where the pipeline could affect the water supply for 8,000 people.

When Bishop Curry arrived, he found the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Sioux tribes coming together as one people for the first time in a hundred years, called by the spirit to protect the water. A sacred flame in the center of their camp marked their reunion, burning without interruption until their group disbanded. They were adamant that they were not there as protesters, but as protectors of the water. They were guardians of the creation, not agitators. And they were fighting evil with love rather than hate.

Everywhere he went, Bishop Curry saw the signs: Water is Life. He realized that racism and environmentalism are part of the same issue. The very people that are made invisible by racism are the most affected by environmental harms. Those who are ripped from their lands, marginalized, and impoverished, shoulder the worst of the environmental disasters. We cannot reconcile with one another without healing our relationship with the earth that supports our lives.

So, Bishop Curry used every tool he had as the presiding Bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church to support the tribes. More than 500 leaders from 25 faith traditions traveled to Standing Rock in November 2016 to support the Indigenous people. On the first night clergy arrived, the Sioux leaders called them together in a gymnasium. The leaders made it clear that they were guests in their land and needed to follow the rules – for one, not to engage in behavior that would get them arrested. Don’t make this about you. Getting arrested doesn’t help us. And then they told stories. They talked about the earth and the water as grandparents, not resources for exploitation. They spoke of the mutuality of the relationship between humans and the earth.

The next morning started with a ritual. Each faith tradition leader apologized for treating creation and the native people with less consideration than they might have. For seeing Native Americans as obstacles and objects instead of as fellow creatures of God’s great earth, deserving autonomy and respect. The clergy gathered and bowed in sorrow. And then they marched. There was a drumbeat and the shaking of bells as hundreds proceeded from the camp to the pipeline construction site. Outside the barriers, they created a Circle of Life – a tradition of the Sioux – giving everyone the opportunity to hug everyone else in the circle without it breaking. People spoke about that moment as an experience they would never forget – it was like coming home to the land again.

You and I know that the Standing Rock story did not have the desired ending. The pipeline was completed. In 2017, the Sioux made the decision to extinguish the sacred fire that burned in the camp’s center and close the camp down. The area became a flood plain. After closing the camp, they released this statement:

The sacred fire of the Seven Councils has been put to sleep.

The sacred fire can be lit in our hearts internally and spiritually forever.

The Horn has been filled with water and love, and now the seeds of this water and love are being given to the world…

The Sioux chose to re-frame the story and to rebirth the story for future generations. They knew that the battle had been lost. They also knew that they could reclaim unity within the tribes and that people of good will could come together for good. They put thought and care into making sure the stories that were created there were healing stories that united people and lifted them up – even at the moment of loss. They created the darkness of the loss while they dared to face the future with hope. They claimed a promise of hope for their children and for future generations when they had to be devastated themselves.

What a beautiful lesson for us! How easy it would have been for the Sioux leaders to despair over the loss of their land and their future as the pipeline was built. Yet, they released a lovely story of truth, healing and hope to tell their story – all is not lost.

Remember what I said last week about the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Corinth in I Cor. 13? We may call it the Love Chapter and read it to couples at their weddings. But Paul was angry with the early church he had formed. Their members were not behaving like he taught them – not getting along and getting into all kinds of ethical trouble. They were sleeping around; getting drunk on communion wine; arguing amongst themselves; taking one another to court; even excluding one another from worship. Paul wrote this text as instruction to them about how to behave properly in church. He could have written in an angry style – with hostility and angst. Instead, he wrote about the principles of love with such poetic beauty that one is drawn into a vision of hope. Just like the Sioux, Paul creates a vision of truth, healing, and hope:

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. I Cor. 13: 8-13

As Bishop Curry writes, “faith, with its partner hope, is why we pursue college degrees, follow passions, commit to the hard work of marriage and raising children. It’s why we carry protest signs and campaign for candidates, instead of just sitting around watching (TV). Then hope comes along, and puts wind in our sails of faith. Hope is the energy that keeps us going when the gravity of reality would otherwise defeat us. And while faith and hope are necessary for a full life, they’re not a guide for life. They don’t tell you what to do. That’s loves job. Love tells you how to direct the energy of outrageous faith. If hope and faith are the wind and sails, love is the rudder. It’s God’s GPS.”

I was given a computer program two years ago by my adult children in order to write my memoir. I have steadily written my stories. Each week, I get a story prompt to start writing a memory. Early on, I had to make a choice: was I going to write about the ugly parts of my life or whitewash them? Was I going to skip over some things to preserve the reputations of those who hurt me or was I going to tell my truth? How was I going to handle life’s very difficult hardships and how they had shaped me? How would I write that honestly?

  • If I didn’t include the hardships, how could I share the great truths I have gained from those experiences?

  • But how could I write about isolation, sorrow, heartache, frustration, death, loss, and loneliness without being morbid, harsh, or too depressing? And how could I talk about the people who were part of my trauma without identifying them?

If you were to write your life story, how would you go about it? How would you allow hope, faith, and love to rule over your life in your story so that you do not become a clanging symbol or a noisy gong?

Will you include the stories of when we have seen that there are glimmers of hope; what we have witnessed of the miraculous, beautiful, glorious, and courageous human spirit as well?

* Will you write about 9/11 and the incredible response of our nation,

pulling together for the survivors and coming together as a united

people?

  • Will you tell of the faith we have developed as we have cocooned in our own homes during the pandemic?

  • Will you explain the incredible connection we can have with people over zoom?

  • Will you include the extreme courage it took you to raise your children; work for a difficult boss; handle a life crisis or a health issue; deal with a spouse’s illness or death; or determine how to manage a touchy family relationship.

    How will we tell our stories? Let us apply the principles of the Sioux and the Love Chapter as we rehearse them in our memories or as we determine how we will act! Let love take over our memories and our lives.


Resources Used:

Curry, Bishop Michael. Love is the Way; Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times. New York: Avery. 2020.