The Stories We Tell

God so loved stories that He created human beings.

Elie Wiesel

She had merely pronounced the title of her story and the tears started welling up in my eyes. I couldn’t control it. “How I Met My Birth-Mom.” Her story hadn’t even begun but those five words were pregnant with vulnerability, courage and self-disclosure. I was not expecting the emotional impact of the stories that were shared that day but I will not soon forget them – a mother’s excruciating struggle with a sick newborn fighting for life, a young college student leaving the security of home and the comfort of a boyfriend to follow the call of Christ, a young man (years later) meeting the nurse who’s tender care nurtured his delicate life as a preemie, a true “miracle” baby.

This was the first session of a series of ecumenical dialogues I gathered this week between Protestants and Catholics as part of my doctoral research. I invited this group of faithful men and women to probe their inner attitudes about “the other” and share their most sacred stories – how they have experienced the transformative presence of God. They were not there to prove their denominational positions or win theological arguments. They were simply asked to share stories about how they’ve experienced the living God. What I’m interested in is the effect that storytelling (not just any stories but the deep, sacred stories of our encounters with God) has on our perceptions of “the other”.

Narrative psychologists suggest that stories and storytelling are at the center of identity formation.  “We are storytellers, and we are the stories we tell,” noted Dan McAdams, professor and chair of the psychology department at Northwestern University.[1]  Human beings, by their very nature, are storytellers. Not only do we enjoy a good story, it seems that our brains are hardwired for it.  The need for narrative is the very “cornerstone of consciousness.”[2] We are the stories we tell.[3]

So the question becomes: What are the stories that we are living into and what are the stories our lives are telling? What are the stories that frame our understanding of ourselves and those who we consider “other”? When Protestants and Catholics think about one another do their minds jump straight to doctrinal differences? Do we rush through the list of reasons why we are “in” and they are “out”? Do we grope for memories that will reinforce and calcify our separateness and justify our bitterness?

Pursuing these questions can lead to startling realizations: Is my identity grounded in intellectual concepts and doctrinal prepositions, or do my stories and the stories of others reveal something deeper, more fundamental, more unifying, more human? The stories told this week lead me to believe that deep and abiding unity is not a pipedream but a gift waiting to be given. The real question is: Do we have the patience and humility to hear the sacred stories of others, listen with our whole being, and embrace the other as a part of ourselves?

A Vision of Embrace

In an embrace I open my arms to create space in myself for the other. Open arms are a sign that I do not want to be by myself only, an invitation for the other to come in and feel at home with me. In an embrace I also close my arms around the other. Closed arms are a sign that I want the other to become a part of me while I at the same time maintain my own identity. By becoming part of me, the other enriches me. In a mutual embrace, none remains the same because each enriches the other, yet both remain true to their genuine selves.[4]

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            [1]  Dan P. McAdams, Ruthellen Josselson, and Amia Lieblich (editors), Identity and Story: Creating Self in Narrative (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2006), 3.

            [2]  Peter Gruber, “The Inside Story,” Psychology Today (March 15, 2011) found at http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201103/the-inside-story, Accessed 1/15/13.

[3] So pervasive is this consensus that many scholars suggest that the brain is “first and foremost a vehicle for storytelling.” Dan P. McAdams, The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self (New York: The Guilford Press, 1993), 28.  See also G.S. Howard, A Tale of Two Stories: Excursions into a Narrative Psychology (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989); M. Landau, “Human Evolution as Narrative,” American Scientist, 72 (1984): 262-268; T.R. Sarbin (ed.), Narrative Psychology: The Storied Nature of Human Conduct (New York: Praeger, 1986).

[4] Miroslav Volf, “A Vision of Embrace: Theological Perspectives on Cultural Identity and Conflict,” The Ecumenical Review 48(2), April 1995, 203.