Storytelling

Good morning all,

We've been starting with Scripture each morning, today let's look back at Steinbeck for a moment.

"And it came about in the camps along the roads, on the ditch banks beside the streams, under the sycamores, that the story teller grew into being, so that the people gathered in the low firelight to hear the gifted ones.  And they listened while the tales were told, and their participation made the stories great."

"And the people listened, and their faces were quiet with listening.  The story tellers, gathering attention into their tales, spoke in great rhythms, spoke in great words because the tale was great, and the listeners became great through them."  from The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck pg. 444

Once again Steinbeck draws us into his story and captures our imagination as we gather a mental picture of the migrants gathered around a storyteller, listening, hungering for a vision of something more than where they are at, longing to remember that there is something greater, that there is hope.  That is the power of the story teller, they can paint mental pictures that draw us into the picture and give us life and light and hope.  Steinbeck is describing earthly stories about fighting Indians or a rich fellow pretending to be poor, but what he has described is equally true for those of us that tell God's story.

We are all storytellers and everyone has a bit of Californian migrant in them as we all look at our lives and wonder at times, "If this is it?" or, "Isn't there something more?"  We are all looking for that story that will draw us in and give us that hope again that there is something more, something bigger, something better, something transcendent in which we can participate.  There is only one story that can truly do that without fail, every time it is told and that is the story of God.  We are all called to be God's storytellers.  It is a big story, with lots of parts and we don't have to tell the whole thing all at once, we just have to know it well enough to share the parts that can connect with a particular person in a particular place.  We have to be able to tell it in a way that captures their imagination and invites them into this bigger than life story of God.  Because just as Steinbeck's migrants are made great through listening to the stories, so are each of us made great when we are drawn into the story of God.

Your brother in Christ,
Faron