Way back in 1979 I travelled to London for the Methodist Association of Youth Clubs (MAYC) London Weekend. My brother and I were only away for two nights with a coachload of other folk from Bradford, most of them unknown to us, but that weekend my life changed. Returning home on Sunday evening, I can remember being on a high, the adrenalin of the weekend still pumping through my veins “tell us all about it” my mum said, and that was it, they got the “thread to the needle” as my mum would have said.
I kept on recalling more and more memories during the days that followed and took great delight in re living every moment. Maybe I learned that evening about the importance of storytelling. Writing and reading Thought for the Days has become a reminder of how important stories are to us. I often find myself sitting with a family after a loved one has died, and I have been asked to conduct a funeral service. Total strangers want to talk about the deceased and sometimes I spend ages listening to the story. I am genuinely fascinated, and it is one of the high points of my ministry.
I am of a generation that grew up with the stories of Enid Blyton, often frowned upon today. I loved the Famous Five and still have a set of those stories that came alive during my childhood. As I look at them through adult eyes, I am quite appalled at the way their parents appeared to let these four children and a dog get into the scrapes they did, but I was captivated as a child.
I have never really got into Harry Potter but have seen my own children enthralled by the stories of wizards, dark forces, magic and make belief conjured up by JK Rowling. Even my Grandson is mesmerised by the stories. Today, I am mush more mature, but still love a good crime thriller and at my most sophisticated a biography about one of the greats in history. There is nothing better than a good story to get lost in.
One of the best story books of all time is the Bible, you might not be surprised to hear me say that, but there are some amazing stories of success in the face of adversity, Noah building an ark to lead his family and a load of animals to safety, Jonah surviving being swallowed by a whale, and the trek of Moses and the Children of Israel in the wilderness. The are battles and blood shed, illicit affairs, dreams, and many hair-raising stories.
The four Gospels tell the story of Jesus, his teaching, his servant ministry, his death, and resurrection. The rest of the New Testament tells how, filled with the Holy Spirit, the early Church developed and grew. In his ministry, Jesus used stories to illustrate his points, to explain how life should be lived. We have a wealth of parables, which are illustrative stories, which some of us learned as children and they give us a moral code for our adult lives.
Today, we are part of that ongoing story, as each day begins, it is a blank page for us to write our story on, we may never have to story of our lives published, but the art of storytelling requires one to tell of their experiences, their joys, sorrows, challenges and even fears. It also requires somebody to say as my mum did all those years ago “tell me all about it” and we are reminded that hearing the story is as important as telling it.