Every so often I'm reminded of the power of stories. Facts may help to change a person's mind, but stories have a chance of changing the heart.

Better yet, hear the other side of the story as well. Hear the story from the adversary. Then you may come away with enough understanding of war that you'll join those veterans who know it's not something glorious and celebratory, but it's disturbing enough to eat at you all the rest of your life.
I've heard stories from Vietnam veterans that touched my heart. There was the vet who spent forty days alone in the desert, like Jesus, fasting and reading and praying to put his life back together again. There's the friend who will die taking pieces of debilitating shrapnel with him. There's the veteran who will never have children because of her exposure to toxic substances.

As he recounted the story of his loss and eventual adoption in the U.S., he had to gather himself in long periods of silence and tears. I envisioned him with veterans I have known, both of them far more open hearted to the other than those of us who have never seen the violence of war up close. We can make lots of excuses and rationalizations in our minds about the necessity of war, perhaps because we don't have the stories of reality that touch the heart.
I'll never forget my week end with the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. The small village where the event was located was filled with huge circus tents. Thousands of people were there to hear storytellers from diverse backgrounds.

Moving from tent to tent and storyteller to storyteller, over the course of two days, one joined hundreds of others in times of laughter and grief, joy and tears, all through the power of oral storytelling. I came away convinced that the power of the spoken word was alive and well, if only we were prepared to listen.
My habit is to read stories before going to sleep at night. I read fiction, novels. There is far too much non-fiction in my daylight hours. Fiction, stories, help me sleep. Perhaps as I've aged, I need the story time of childhood again. Reading The Chronicles of Narnia to our children before bedtime is one of my most memorable experiences. I still hear them saying, "One more chapter dad, one more."

One could hope those Biblical stories still resonate as people reflect on our southern border. One could hope those stories are still being told, again and again and again.


Carl Kline
No comments:
Post a Comment