“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”
John 21:25
Of all the gospel endings, I love this one the best. It shapes my imagination as a storyteller: how can we become trustworthy gospel narrators to a story that is TBC?
In the winter of 2015 I took to the stage at Mill’s Hardware, to share a personal story with Steel City Stories, a local storytelling guild. They’d partnered with The Good Shepherd Centre for three shows in celebration of International Women’s Day. I shared about teaching adolescent girls in the advent of smartphones, when the images they shared with their crushes backfired, derailing their education and ability to show up in real life. I shared my feelings of inadequacy at helping young women, my own shame about my complicity in the beauty industry and the lack of solutions I had for life with technology. This led audience members to open up to me afterwards and share their struggles with teen bullying, self-image and not having the answers in a quickly shifting technological reality. Not having “a moral of the story”, opened a conversation about how we improvise in community.
From then on, I became the person who searched for other people’s stories, and brought them on stage to share. In asking folks to dig deep and discover the stakes of their own story – what would have happened if they didn’t take that risk, call that person, stop that bus etc etc. I was asking them to be vulnerable, to let go of their agendas, to let go of needing to leave the audience with a conclusion tied-up in a bow. Together we practised receiving the stories and trusting one another.
In the past ten years, I have coached hundreds of people to tell personal stories. In the church we have a tradition of sharing testimonies about what God has done in our lives, and these testimonies continue to be a blessing in faith communities. Where testimonies sometimes let us down is when they turn into sermons. When a story turns into a to-do list for someone else’s formation. When Jesus solves every problem immediately. If we’re honest, many of our stories are stories in progress, and we can’t see where it ends yet. There are libraries yet to fill.
I love working with young people, and helping them to craft their stories and consider what is at stake in their lives. What happens if they don’t take a risk? If they don’t step out of their comfort zones? If they don’t discover their gifts and passions?
But the stories young people need to hear? They aren’t the stories about the whirlwind success of a thirty year old billionaire. They need the stories of those who’ve had a few wilderness journeys and can remember the disorientation, the suffering and also the faithfulness of God in the wilderness and as he leads us to the other side.
I’ve seen firsthand how people often change their minds, and repent, when their hearts are touched by the stories of others. In scripture we see how God’s story challenges us to pay attention to the temptations of empire and choose shalom.Throughout the year at Act Five we celebrate stories of people working out their faith and wrestling with God along the way. We consider our rhythms of life and the possibilities of living our days faithfully. At the same time, we explore the many streams of Christianity, the gifts that come from different denominations and traditions, and the role imagination plays in expanding human capacity for empathy and compassion. We are story people, living out our calling to imagine the unwritten canon in the overflowing library of the things that Jesus is still doing.
So even if it terrifies us, we get up and share, and in the remembering we see the miracles of what God is doing.
