A Half-Million Stories

If we are to believe the media, statistics, red flags, and warning signs, we are in trouble... and have been for a long time. We need only look around for proof of danger, chaos, and upside-down thinking. We know our actions--and often lack thereof--have threatened our planet, putting the survival of various species and even whole ecosystems in peril. We know our attitudes and habits--and sometimes lack thereof--around money, food, and relationships have created crises for our bank accounts, bodies, families and communities. We see a world of violence, oppression, intolerance, and war, and we know--if we look at the headlines we would prefer not to see--that each day, somewhere, countless numbers of our human brothers and sisters are suffering and dying from disease, starvation, injustice, and genocide. We know that somehow we have veered off-track, and we fear that we (as individuals and collectively) may never get back to a place of stability, health, and balance.

What's more, it all seems so overwhelming! Where to start? With poverty? War? Disease? Greed? Intolerance? Crime? Our children? Our parents? The homeless? In our communities? Our country? Halfway around the world? One could easily give way to depression, cynicism, fear, anxiety, or hopelessness.

Except that there's more to the story...

We also have countless examples of individuals (and communities and cultures and whole civilizations)--from the past and in the present--who have faced adversity and triumphed, who have overcome obstacles, who have solved problems large and small, who have had the most amazing comebacks, who have saved lives, who have inspired others, who have made life-changing contributions and had awe-inspiring achievements, who have persisted and had a breakthrough, who have endured darkness and survived to see the light, who have struggled and sacrificed and won, who have created breathtaking art and new paradigms, who have lived lives of grace and dignity, and who have touched others through their love, compassion, courage, insight, imagination, and heroism. We need to tell those stories.

Einstein told us that we couldn't solve problems from the level on which they were created. We need a different vantage point. Powerful stories can give us that. Powerful stories can give us insights, solutions, models, guidance, and wisdom. I submit we need to make a conscious effort to re-story our world. I think we need to generate a frenzy of story-sharing. We need our stories to flow in an abundant circle of give and take. We need personal stories and family stories, histories and biographies, fictions and poems and works of art. Powerful stories can bring us together. Powerful stories can help us learn and celebrate. Powerful stories can give us hope. We need to tell those stories.

How many shared stories does it take to heal wounds, solve problems, create breakthroughs? How many shared stories might it take to right wrongs, bring change, save us?

In William Gibson's play The Miracle Worker--itself a story of persistence and problem-solving, of overcoming obstacles, of hope and triumph--Annie Sullivan tries to break through the communication barrier between Helen Keller and the world at large by teaching Helen sign language. Annie spells into Helen's hand constantly, hoping to give her the key to language and thus communication. Helen's mother watches the process and asks how many finger-spelled words it will take before Helen "knows." Annie's reply is "Maybe a million." Kate Keller then asks to learn the sign language letters, so she, too, can spell words to Helen. Working together, Annie and Kate only need to spell a half-million words each.

We have a story-model. It only takes one person to begin. It only takes one to join in. Our efforts matter, and, as in Helen's case, when the breakthrough occurs, the whole world changes.