Nativity Catholic Church
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Storytellers (and Storylisteners) of God?
A "FIRESTARTER" Spiritual Essay by Rev.
Dr. Benjamin
Berinti, C.Pp.S. I have met people in my life upon which I have conferred the label “storytellers.” In some of those cases, that’s a compliment; in others, it’s not! I knew a young college student by the name of “Carlo” who, at the tender age of 21, was already a consummate storyteller of the non-complimentary brand. Carlo spent late nights weaving his way through the floors of the residence hall, working his way into any room with an open door (which normally included my apartment, since the door was almost always ajar), and plying his spectacular accounts of various events, many of which had to do with his own stellar accomplishments. Most people simply ignored Carlo; but there were those who became so irritated with his exaggerated storytelling, that they told him to bug off! Personally, I liked Carlo, and I decided early on that 98% of what he waxed on about was over-the-top, mostly made up, and with little basis in reality. But I found him energetic and entertaining, and all together quite harmless. Sometimes the designation “storyteller” means that a person knows how to stretch the truth. They are usually given to large, expansive, and often quite engaging tales about their own or others’ exploits, but something in the way they lay out their stories tips us off that they are spinning fiction with a capital F! Then there are those other mesmerizing storytellers who mix wonderful cocktails of fact and fiction, and as we drink in their potent elixirs, we know ourselves to be experiencing great truths about life. Unlike most peoples’ reactions to Carlo, we do more than tolerate their presence among us—we relish their presence and their stories. Somehow, true storytellers open windows for our souls, so that the Spirit of God can float in and out, enlightening us and empowering us for life! Ah yes, the power of stories and storytellers—they can help us breathe in new worlds of vision, or strangle us by wrapping us in only one world of vision. They can reveal hidden secrets that people work hard to keep out of sight, or they can throw up barriers that prevent us from seeing and knowing the truth. Stories and storytellers have the power to expand our minds and hearts, or they can spin tales that only seek to constrict our minds and hearts. But the art of storytelling is not limited to the Carlos, or to the great poets and writers in every culture. Storytelling is so fundamental to the human experience that John and Mary Harrell in To Tell of Gideon assert that “storytelling is so natural to human beings it suggests a definition [of what it means to be “human”]: we are the creatures who think in stories.” By our very nature, we are all storytellers—and we can exercise the art of our “storytelling” as compliment or condemnation. Perhaps we don’t often think about it this way, but we are surrounded every day by “stories”—they are being told by co-workers, spouses, children, friends, teachers, television programs and advertisements, radio gab-shows, media entertainment that parades around as “news,” magazines, Internet “bloggers,” just to name a few. And no less a potent source of storytelling is our Catholic Christian faith tradition. Not simply the parables of Jesus or the tales of God’s activities in both testaments of sacred Scripture count as stories of faith, but our music, art, worship, creeds, rituals, practices of piety, indeed the very stories that are “told” by the choices and decisions we make in living the Gospel of Jesus Christ each day—also make each of us storytellers of God in Christ, with the Holy Spirit as the muse who inspires and infuses our storytelling. But here’s the problem, the challenge—in most cases, the stories of God in Christ are regularly muscled out by the often louder and more annoying storytellers who surround us. Indeed, the story of the Gospel way of life of Jesus Christ is increasingly an ALTERNATIVE story to the ones that fill every crack of our lives. Deacon John, in a recent Sunday homily, called attention to “stories”—the first, an elaborate Sunday spread in the Orlando Sentinel about a mega-mansion of 90,000 (!) square feet being constructed in Orange County and the story of the “doyen” of that palatial dwelling—which he then juxtaposed with a second story published the next day in the Sentinel about the “changing faces of the homeless” and the Orlando Rescue Mission’s efforts to keep pace (which they cannot, turning away 30-40 families, mostly women and children, each day). Now, which of the “stories” is the one the people of God might be called to pay attention to in light of the Gospel of Christ? Which story really deserves more “press” when viewed from the perspective of God and God’s desires for people? Here’s the question: how bold, courageous, committed is our telling of the alternative stories of Jesus Christ, the ones which go against the grain of the rest of our world’s storytellers. Are the “Carlos” of the world drowning out the alternative ways of seeing and being in the world which God intends for creation, drowning out the stories of Jesus Christ that literally turn the world upside down when they are proclaimed? Many years ago, a rather famous commentator on culture, Ivan Illich was once asked what is the most revolutionary way to change society. His answer was both thoughtful and thought provoking: “If you want to change society, then you must tell an alternative story.” And perhaps this is why so little in our world seems to change, whether on the local, national, or international stages—or on the stages where you and I act out our daily decisions! There are great risks to those who tell stories that are contrary to the expectations that others want us to meet—we have no further than the prophets and the Lord Jesus himself to see the usual fate that awaits people who dare spin stories that ask people to see behind the curtains, to imagine new responses to age old questions, to propose alternative actions to the dominating ones currently in use. But this is the legacy of storytelling that Jesus Christ leaves his followers, his disciples. While we may bind up the stories of the Bible into “Children’s” editions, there is hardly anything “childish” about the power and consequences of the stories of God’s working in and working on God’s creation! What kinds of stories are you listening to these days? What kinds of stories are you telling? Do they sound like all the rest? Or are your stories ones that will turn the world upside down as God intends?
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