Storytelling

I attended a really fabulous workshop on storytelling today, led by a minister with an amazing love for children's literature. He told us stories, he asked us to think about our own storytelling, and he challenged us to not shy away from the emotionally challenging stories. That in fact, we need to learn how to grieve, we need to see the emotional impact of war, and we need to know how to handle tough emotions. How are we supposed to learn that if those things are never discussed, never demonstrated, never modeled? Story can be a very important teaching tool in these areas.

This point reminded me of a book I am reading right now, The Uses of Enchantment. The author has this to say: "There is widespread refusal to let children know that the source of much that goes wrong in life is due to our very own natures - the propensity of all men for acting aggressively, asocially, selfishly, out of anger and anxiety. Instead, we want our children to believe that, inherently, all men are good. But children know that they are not always good, and often, even when they are they would prefer not to be. This contradicts what they are told by their parents, and therefor makes the child a monster in his own eyes."

Bettelheim is a Freudian, and this book was published before I was born, so I feel like some of the concepts are a bit out-of-date or at least off-tone, but overall I love his analysis of why Fairy Tales resonant and are needed by children. We need stories, even, or perhaps especially, the ones that challenge us.

So today I was challenged to think about these questions:

1. What is the theme that you keep coming back to in your stories, columns, sermons?
2. How are your stories autobiographical? How is this your story? What is the human connection?
3. What makes a good story? What makes good storytelling?
4. What are you good at and what are you not good at with storytelling?

It was a lovely discussion and reflection, and I realized that I do have a theme in most of my storytelling, and it seems to be Letting Go, Accepting Limitations, and Letting Go of Attachements. Those are things, along with being overly-sensitive and self-critical, that I am actually working on. But then other people mentioned themes like Grace, Beauty, Love, and Community. Geez - I should be focused on those things too! I think we were all feeling like that.

Anyway, it was a very lovely and productive workshop. Here are the books he read from today:

The Van Gogh Cafe

Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that Type

That's Good, That's Bad

Peter Rabbit

Seven Blind Mice

Frederick

Faithful Elephants

What stories do you love? And what stories have challenged you? Gosh, I really love stories. :)