So wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, who knew that stories fascinate us. Whether we're Little Ella or a more mature Ella, stories grab our minds, emotions, and souls and just won't let go. We celebrate and relish master storytellers--we tune in to hear Garrison Keillor tell us the latest news from Lake Wobegon; we find it hard to wait for the next John Gresham legal thriller; we'll pay outrageous prices for a ticket, popcorn, and a Coke to see the cinematic craft of Stephen Spielberg.
BACK THEN
The master storytellers of days long gone survive--craftsmen like Daniel Defoe who told us about Robinson Crusoe, like Alexandre Dumas who wove the tale of three musketeers, like Charles Dickens who chronicled lives of Sydney Carton and Madame Defarge, like Mark Twain who related the adventures of a boy named Huckleberry. and then there was C. S. Lewis who took and continues to take millions of us to Narnia.
AND NOW
But I'm not only thinking of the great fiction writers, but also the non-fiction storytellers who fascinate us with biography (David McCullough and Richard Brookhiser) and the recounting of historical events (Erik Larson, Barbara Tuchman, Shelby Foote). As they think through their fingers, the pages they produce remind us that no one possesses more influence than a master storyteller.
OUT OF THE ARMS OF THE GOD MORPHEUS
Watch students in a classroom as an erudite professor drones on and on about the importance of the cognate accusative, while all the students wish they were Ferris Bueller for a day. But when the learned professor stops mid-lecture and says, "Let me tell you a story about what happened to me when I was kidnapped," and the sophomores snap to mental attention. Sit with a congregation as the pastor marches through his three points, a poem, and a prayer as their minds grow numb and their eyelids limp, but when he stops his presentation of "The Three K's of the Kenosis," and says, "This reminds me of the time an escaped maniac knocked on my office door," and they're all ears.
I had the misfortune to be required to attend weekly chapel services in a school where I taught. One morning, the speaker began by saying, "The last time I spoke in chapel, I spoke on, 'The Five Points of Prayer.' But just this week, God gave me two more points." (Trapped! You could almost hear the energy draining out of the auditorium.) So, we sat there, suffering through his magnificent seven, and, for each one of us, the mental countdown had begun until we reached the end, the much-anticipated 7th point. I left chaffing, upset that God had given him two more points.
OUR CREATION
Jesus, the Creator, certainly knew how He created us--"He structured the human brain to learn and remember stories effectively, . . . our brains are practically designed to be story vaults," as one author wrote. Jesus mostly taught with stories, never three bullet points, all beginning with the letter "B." His now 2,000 year-old stories still fascinate Jews, Christians, and even non-Christians. What Ella doesn't love the story of a son gone rebellious, eats what pigs eat, but comes back home to be greeted by a father who's loved him all along? Who doesn't sit on the edge of his seat when he hears of a man who gets attacked, robbed, beaten, stripped naked, and left barely clinging to life? Those stories still resonate and have been the theme, in one way or another, of countless books and movies.
THIS IS WHERE IT GETS SERIOUS
Kimberly Schimmel scored a bull's eye when she wrote:
"To destroy a culture . . . one must make people forget their stories–or else convince them their stories were all wrong. There is a reason totalitarian governments burn books and control mass media. There is a reason they imprison or execute the most educated citizens when they take over. Stories are powerful! Plato understood that those who control a society’s stories control the society. In modern times, author Ray Bradbury said, 'You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.'"
ELLA'S HISTORICAL AMNESIA
Our culture has experienced just what Schimmel was talking about--we have either forgotten our stories or become convinced that they're all wrong. Instead of the account of of our special creation, they've fed us the story of evolution. Instead of the story of Christ and Him crucified, they've fed us the story of the celebrity of the month. Instead of Christ's feeding the 5,000, they've substituted the story of how government is man's bread of life. Instead of the story of Jesus walking on the water, they've given us the the story of the politician of the month who can almost do that or promises that he (or she) will, once elected.
On the national level, we've forgotten our stories or become convinced they're all wrong. Because our nation's stories are deemed wrong, certain statues, plaques, and names on buildings must go. (They recently renamed an annual dinner.) If we're going to change the names, we must rename the JFK Airport because his moral problems remain legendary. If this keeps up, the only name suitable for public buildings will be "God," since He's the only perfect One, but that won't go well with the re-namers.
From surveys and interviews, we're learning that college students can't recall the stories of our nation's founding, but they can recognize any photograph of any Kardashian. They can recite the lyrics of a rap song, but are hard-pressed to recall snippets of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, or the Gettysburg Address.
ISRAEL, REMEMBER!
Whereas God countless times instructed Israel to remember, remember, and remember again the stories of their history, instructed the fathers to tell their sons "what these stones (memorials) mean," and built the Passover and other celebrations of His miraculous working into their national history, we're telling little Ella to forget the old, old stories. And they know what they're doing. Cut all the Ellas off from their historical, biblical heritage, and you destroy the culture. Then you can mold your own society, based on new stories.
Are we paying the price for instructing each Ella to forget? Look around.
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