In the Beginning

Our stories, our best stories--the ones that grow sturdy and strong, the ones that sustain us through rolicking, verdant seasons and brittle, anxious seasons--begin as tiny, precious, fragile things: seedlings, perhaps, or maybe only fluttery whispers, waiting to find form. A stroke of the brush, a hesitant trickle of syllables or sounds, a moment's hush followed by the tilted head, the glimmer, the pause, and then, softly, "Once upon a time..." or maybe just "Once..." So our stories begin, wispy and delicate, yet resilient beyond measure, nourished by sacred attention, waiting to unfold.

Sometimes we forget what we need. Blessed with superpowers and bursting with stamina, we charge through countless days, tackling and conquering, producing and prevailing. We gobble ready-made rations snatched from fridges and fryers and snacks zapped swiftly on a rotating plate, taking pride in our chronic speed, no longer remembering the slow, sunny flavor of the last ripe tomato from a garden's vine or the fragrant burst of juice from the first perfect summer peach. We race through mazes of tangled streets, zipping in and out of buildings with dizzying proficiency, ticking tasks off gangly checklists grown too large, forgetting the hush, the scent, of sacred forests of pine and spruce, the texture, the cushion, of summer sands between our toes. We watch with rapt attention the latest dramas unfolding on our great, huge screens and individual, handheld screens. We call, text, twitter, post, record, burn, copy, and play, splattering images and sounds across our landscapes, deftly managing a frenzy of messages, headlines, graphics, sound bites, ringtones, "reality," replays, and advertising. We forget the pleasures of long, lazy evenings on rocking-chair porches, of shadows descending softly on circles of familiar faces, of resonant voices rising and falling, filling the darkness with stories.

Sometimes we forget what we need... As with fresh, homegrown foods and nature's sounds and silences, we sometimes forget what our spirits most desire--rich stories, authentic stories, stories that fill us and sustain us and remind us who we are.

I propose a transformation!

I propose we harvest stories! I propose we gather and rescue our old, wise stories before it's too late. I propose we plant fresh, new stories because it is time. I propose we nurture story-seeds, our yet-to-be-discovered wisdom, starting small and expectant, like second-graders with soil in paper cups, watching, waiting, for the first tiny signs of life to poke their way through. I propose we pause... to share our truths, to listen and to tell, to nourish the still, small stories that our spirits so crave...

Let the story-sharing begin...