"Are you telling me this story will single-handedly restore my faith in romance?" I quipped.
I eat lunch with some of the best people in the world. When you teach, contrary to popular belief, you only get to sit down and relax for about fifteen minutes a day -- during lunch. It's really important to have a good "lunch bunch." We do talk about work a little bit, but we talk about a lot of other things too. That's how I found out about Storycorps.
A new teacher joined our group, an English as a Second Language specialist. He brought a fresh pool of discussion topics to the table, chiefly because he was the only guy present. Some days I felt sorry for him, especially when people would come in the lounge and say, "Hey ladies," despite the fact that he is undeniably masculine. He has a beard.
One day we were talking about relationships, as girls will do. He was offering up the male perspective and mentioned a cartoon. "You've got to watch it," he said. "It's great."
He smiled and started to explain the story, but he stopped himself. "You know what? Just promise me you'll watch it. You have to see it for yourself." He said.
"Are you telling me this story will single-handedly restore my faith in romance?" I quipped.
He started nodding. "Yeah, it might. It's a true story."
So I went and watched it. You can too. Check it out.
Isn't it AMAZING. Know what? It did restore my faith in romance, and I fell instantly in love with Storycorps. Here's the premise. Everyday people get the chance to record a story about their lives. That's it. Most of them are in an interview format; people talk about a relationship or a shared life experience. I've listened to quite a few.
I'm a sucker for a good story, always have been. It's practically a sport in our family. We all gather up in the kitchen and tell about our most embarrassing moments, our life adventures, and funny things we've seen. As a child I grew up listening to my dad tell stories about visiting his grandfather's ranch, his days on an off-shore oil rig, and his time as a commercial fisherman.
My mom took us to the library regularly and always read to us. We sat clustered around and cried together while she read us the sad parts of Where the Red Fern Grows. At bedtime for weeks, I imagined I was out on the prairie with Laura Ingalls Wilder. Later I sat perched in a peach tree and pretended to be Anne of Green Gables.
Through stories we are able to connect with others and learn new things. I use storytelling in my classroom all the time to help my students make important connections. A guy named Joseph Campbell spent his whole life studying stories, especially ancient myths. He compared them and did a darn good job showing how myths have the same basic parts. People always love a hero who faces challenges and the unknown yet manages to triumph. Campbell called this idea the "monomyth."
These similarities are not an accident. There is something deep inside all of us that responds to stories. We hear them or read them and are affected. The best stories that last and cross the barriers of time and culture have universal truth at the heart of them.
All of us are living our own stories. We are the narrator, the main character, the protagonist. Some chapters have already been written; the rest is unclear.
What's more, our stories are a smaller part of a bigger story, the story of humanity. Here's what Paul says to the Romans about Abraham:
In his introduction to The Message, his translation of the Bible, Eugene H. Peterson says this:
A new teacher joined our group, an English as a Second Language specialist. He brought a fresh pool of discussion topics to the table, chiefly because he was the only guy present. Some days I felt sorry for him, especially when people would come in the lounge and say, "Hey ladies," despite the fact that he is undeniably masculine. He has a beard.
One day we were talking about relationships, as girls will do. He was offering up the male perspective and mentioned a cartoon. "You've got to watch it," he said. "It's great."
He smiled and started to explain the story, but he stopped himself. "You know what? Just promise me you'll watch it. You have to see it for yourself." He said.
"Are you telling me this story will single-handedly restore my faith in romance?" I quipped.
He started nodding. "Yeah, it might. It's a true story."
So I went and watched it. You can too. Check it out.
Isn't it AMAZING. Know what? It did restore my faith in romance, and I fell instantly in love with Storycorps. Here's the premise. Everyday people get the chance to record a story about their lives. That's it. Most of them are in an interview format; people talk about a relationship or a shared life experience. I've listened to quite a few.
I'm a sucker for a good story, always have been. It's practically a sport in our family. We all gather up in the kitchen and tell about our most embarrassing moments, our life adventures, and funny things we've seen. As a child I grew up listening to my dad tell stories about visiting his grandfather's ranch, his days on an off-shore oil rig, and his time as a commercial fisherman.
My mom took us to the library regularly and always read to us. We sat clustered around and cried together while she read us the sad parts of Where the Red Fern Grows. At bedtime for weeks, I imagined I was out on the prairie with Laura Ingalls Wilder. Later I sat perched in a peach tree and pretended to be Anne of Green Gables.
Through stories we are able to connect with others and learn new things. I use storytelling in my classroom all the time to help my students make important connections. A guy named Joseph Campbell spent his whole life studying stories, especially ancient myths. He compared them and did a darn good job showing how myths have the same basic parts. People always love a hero who faces challenges and the unknown yet manages to triumph. Campbell called this idea the "monomyth."
These similarities are not an accident. There is something deep inside all of us that responds to stories. We hear them or read them and are affected. The best stories that last and cross the barriers of time and culture have universal truth at the heart of them.
All of us are living our own stories. We are the narrator, the main character, the protagonist. Some chapters have already been written; the rest is unclear.
What's more, our stories are a smaller part of a bigger story, the story of humanity. Here's what Paul says to the Romans about Abraham:
But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. (4:3-4 The Message)I've come to appreciate the beauty of the idea that my life is my own personal story, but more importantly, it is taking place inside a much bigger epic being written by God. That's what the Bible is -- God's story. His story about himself and about his love for us.
In his introduction to The Message, his translation of the Bible, Eugene H. Peterson says this:
In these pages we become insiders to a conversation in which God uses words to form and bless us, to teach and guide us, to forgive and save us. We aren't used to this. We are used to reading books that explain things, or tell us what to do, or inspire or entertain us. But this is different! This is a world of revelation: God revealing to people just like us -- men and women created in God's image -- how God works and what is going on in this world which we find ourselves.I love stories. I could sit here all day and listen to hundreds of them on Storycorps, but not a single story I have every heard or ever will hear can even compare to the story we're all living out, the story God has written. The Bible is the true love story.
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