I come from a storytelling people. My Irish ancestors steal stories fr
om every culture on Earth and make them their own. My Cherokee ancestors told stories around the campfire on long nights. My Scots, British, German, Scandanavian and Jewish forebears told their own stories and told them quite well if you check out any decent library.
Not everyone likes my storytelling, however. Storytelling is a gift that can be powerful, especially in an argument. A friend of mine once complained that whenever we argue, I’ve always got a story that proves I’m right. The implication is, of course, that I make these stories up to prove my point.
By the time you get to be as old as me, you’ve collected thousands of such stories. They shape how you think and what you believe. We call that experience. It’s the best way I know to discover the truth.
If you’ve managed to do things in your life, if you’ve stepped out of your comfort zone regularly, if you’ve heard God’s still small voice and said, “Here am I, send me,” then you probably have a lot more interesting and illustrative stories than most folk.
© 2019 by Tom King
3 replies on “Having Stories at Hand”
I believe one of the problems we are having with this new generation is that the stories aren’t “taking”. Either we are doing a poor job of telling them, or they are being rejected. I see a lot of “that’s not relevant” and “the world’s different now” and “our generation isn’t like that”. If you want to connect with the current crop, I suggest you start a webcomic…
I can’t do comics. I am a comic addict. I don’t like who I become when I read comics. I’m 53 years sober.
LOL! I am 66, sober or not, and I have to admit I enjoy some movies and some series shows based on comics (Green Arrow is being produced by Netflix, but their version is more soap opera than comic). Thor: Ragnarok was funny as hell, and I liked the Ironman movies (though only about 50% of the Marvel universe movies are any good).