Stories as Instruments of Truth and Transformation

"It's just a story" is a flippant response that must be rejected. Stories are a powerful truth medium and should never be considered inferior to abstract reasoning. Stories are truth and we are our stories.

According to Daniel Taylor, professor of English at Bethel College, "You are your stories. You are the product of all the stories you have heard and lived... They have shaped how you see yourself, the world, and your place in it" (p. 1). Our stories give our lives meaning by connecting the disparate events of our lives together. "Stories link past, present, and future in a way that tells us where we have been (even before we were born), where we are, and where we could be going" (p. 1). Stories weave the experiences of our lives together into a cohesive and coherent "plot line" that allows us to find meaning and purpose. "Seeing our lives as stories, rather than as an unrelated series of random events, increases the possibility for having in our lives what we find in the best stories: significant, purposeful action" (p. 21). Those who feel their life is without meaning "are really saying that 'the narrative [story] of their life has become unintelligible to them, that it lacks any point, any movement towards a climax or a telos'" (p. 58).

In his book, The Healing Power of Stories (also titled Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Stories), Taylor desires "to explore at length... the role stories play in shaping and giving direction to our lives" (p. 7). Following are four aspects of stories that make them powerful instruments of truth and transformation.

Stories embrace the whole person and not simply the intellect. Stories provide the kind of knowledge that abstract reason alone cannot give.

One of the advantages of story knowledge is its concreteness and specificity. Stories give us individualized people in specific times and places doing actual things. Rationality tends to sidestep the messy particulars to deal directly with the generalized concepts behind the particulars. In doing so it often strip-mines reality, washing away tons of seemingly useless details to get to the small golden nuggets of truth. (p. 30)

Stories are more powerful than abstract reasoning because they appeal "to all of what we are as human beings, not just to part of us" (p. 33). Since this is true, we must radically change our perspective of stories. Stories do not exist simply to illustrate truth. Stories are truth! Stories give life to truth by embodying truth. They act "by incarnation, giving flesh and life to what otherwise is detached and abstract" (p. 54).

By embracing the emotions as well as the intellect stories provide a holistic means of communicating truth. Without emotions, reason has no power to transform us. It is this vital human aspect that story uses to challenge and transform us, for without emotions there can be no true knowledge.

[I]f we do not know something emotionally we do not know it completely... A merely sentimental story is not to be criticized because it appeals to the emotions, but because it appeals only to the emotions... No matter how much our heads know, if our hearts are not persuaded, we are not truly convinced, certainly not enough to act. (pp. 33, 34, 35)

Stories expose the underlying moral fabric of our lives. All good stories are inherently moral, clearly demonstrating by the consequences of choices that not all characters and decisions are good. It becomes quite obvious in the telling of a story that certain actions are good or right and others, wrong.

Because characters have choices, stories are inherently concerned with right and wrong -- with morality. For all the reflexive relativism in our culture, we still believe in good and evil in our bones and are drawn to microdramas of 'ought' and 'should'. (p. 19)

Refusing to admit this reduces every story to insignificance. If every choice is of equal weight then nothing is truly good or bad, right or wrong.

A story involves "the telling of the significant actions of characters over time" (p. 15). A story is more than merely a string of unrelated events. Instead, a good story links together significant actions that change a character, for better or for worse. Events lose their significance if they hold no potential to transform a character in a positive or negative way. A random sequence of unrelated events that leaves a character no different than when he or she began is not a story - it is a security tape.

A character is "a bundle of values in action" (p. 18). A character is changed over time by their choices in a story. It is this transformation that impacts us most. "The single aspect of story that draws us most irresistibly is character. We remember characters from stories long after we've forgotten plot, language, and theme" (p. 41). Stories present us not simply with personalities but also with a person's character. Our contemporary culture is caught up in "the cult of personality" with very little interest in character. Yet Taylor warns (and stories prove) that "[w]e should worry less about our personality and more about our character" (p. 41). Personality comprises what distinguishes us from others individually. Character has to do with growing in virtue or vice. The growth or degeneration of a person's character within a story links together the events of a story. By showing us the transformation of character over time through the telling of significant actions, we ourselves are challenged to consider our own character and its growth, or lack thereof.

Stories connect us to others. Our personal stories both remind us of our individual significance as well as position us within the complex fabric of human relationships. We are who we are as a result of our relationships with others. "[O]ur stories are interwoven... We cannot live our story alone because we are characters in each other's stories. What you do is part of my story; what I do is part of yours" (p. 3). Because of this relational quality, our stories are an invitation to further relationship with others. Telling our stories invites others to share our experience, and perhaps even be shaped by it as well.

Stories open the possibility of transforming us. "Every powerful character we encounter in story is a challenge to our own character, and holds the possibility of changing us" (p. 42). By evaluating our own character in light of another's story, we enter their story and are influenced by it. We, like the characters in a story, are the sum total of our individual choices made within the fabric of our family and culture. We can learn from the choices and consequences of another's actions - both positive and negative - because we are also people in transition, growing or degenerating in character based on the decisions we make. Stories about other humans, regardless of their situation or unique personality, touch us deeply and are ripe with potential to transform our lives. Each story is a challenge to our own story, calling us to learn and grow ourselves. In this way, every story is inherently moral, exemplifying the "right" or "wrong" way to live. To lose this component is to trivialize every story.

If no one can tell me what to do, no one can teach me what to do either. If I cannot be corrected by others, because we all have our own views and values, I cannot learn from them. The same tolerance that rightfully allows every person or group their own story can unwittingly trivialize everyone's story if it leads to all of us being isolated in our unique worlds. (p. 141)

It is possible for a story to completely reorient our perspective of self, others, and the world. If our current story does not explain our experience, then the possibility of embracing another story holds creative potential. "[W]hen we accept a new defining story for our life... [n]othing-past, present, or future-looks the same" (p. 87). Embracing a new story changes our perception of reality. If we grew up without stories of God or the supernatural, we are not likely to sense God at work in our lives. But if we consider the possibility of God or the supernatural as part of the story of our lives, we are more likely to sense a spiritual reality behind the material one (p. 27). Our perspective is radically reoriented by introducing us to a completely new reality.

Not only does our perception change, but stories allow us to imagine something better. Through stories, children "see themselves being in the future something other than they were presently" (p. 28). They can imagine "something more and better than [they] presently are" (p. 28). This is the power of story to shape, form, and transform our lives. By opening our imagination to other possibilities, stories expand our perception and change our lives.

The church has a story called the gospel - the good news. The message the church proclaims has to do with a series of redemptive events planned and executed by God for the good of all people. The message is not primarily about morals, principles, or pious platitudes. It is a story of God's actions in human history. Because it is a story it involves not only the mind, but also the emotions and the will.

Christians are people who have been caught up in God's story. Each person contributes to the story. Each individual story impacts and influences other stories. There is no insignificant person or event in God's story. We all play a part.

The church proclaims this story through word and deed. Through presenting the gospel to the world, the church calls all people to take their respective place in God's good news of salvation. In the public service of worship, the church remembers and celebrates God's story. As people sharing the same story we renew our commitment to shaping our lives by God's story. By remembering God's story and our place in it, the church demonstrates the worth and value of God to the world. "Remembering is a form of valuing, and what we choose to value and what to neglect is a measure of our morality" (p. 39). In the central act of Christian worship - the Eucharist - the church remembers afresh the story of God centered in Christ. "It is no accident that significant rituals almost always tell stories" (p. 121).

Daniel Taylor is right. All truth is personal because all truth is "storied." Stories are truth and we are our stories. All things - including our lives - have significance insofar as they align themselves with God's story. Participating in God's story gives meaning and purpose to our lives. Declaring God's story gives others the opportunity to be enriched by it.

Understanding truth in this way fits our lives and experience. "Seeing our lives as stories is more than a powerful metaphor. It is how experience presents itself to us" (p. 4). The Bible is not a collection of morals and principles, nor is it a systematic defense of abstract truths. Instead the Bible is a collection of stories that together reveal the one great story - the good news of God - that underlies all stories and gives each individual story significance and meaning.

© Richard J. Vincent, 2003