Asking for Stories, Part 1

One of the most amazing methods I have discovered for bringing powerful, transformative stories into my life is to simply ask for them. Some of my story-requests were accidental--more like rhetorical questions--and I didn't actually expect the responses I received. As time has gone on, though, I have become more bold in asking for stories and, while such requests don't always produce meaningful results, I can attest to the fact that sometimes the most profound, extraordinary things happen when you ask for the stories you need.

Once when my daughters were little, I was browsing in a bookstore and leafed through an astrology book that described the characteristics of children born under each sign of the zodiac. The description for my younger daughter Katerina's sign (Pisces) was so accurate to my experience, it made me grin ear to ear. The book said something like, "Your Pisces child is the type of child you can place in her playpen and tell her she is watching a circus, and by the time you return from putting in the next load of laundry, she will be able to tell you all about it." That fit my imaginative little one to a T.

"Katie" (as I called her then), I might say, "Tell me about life on your planet," and, without any hesitation whatsoever, she would launch into a rambling description of a different world. "Katie!" I might call from my room at bedtime: "There is a monster under my bed!" From the darkness of her room, she would giggle, ask what kind of monster it was, and give specific instructions and as to how the crisis should be handled. So perhaps I should not have been at all surprised that she would have an answer to the most profound question of all, but I was.

When Kina (as she prefers to be called now) was four years old, my sister and I--with Kina in tow--were driving from the midwest to the east coast for a family reunion. My sister and I were at places in our lives where we were looking at where we had been and where we were going. We were determined that, in addition to the festivities and bonding of the family reunion, this trip would give us insights. To that end, we were bringing personal growth tools (our journals, self-help books, tapes and cd's with lectures and meditations on them, etc.), intending to carve out some reflective time for ourselves. It was from this position of "seeking" that I asked my happy-go-lucky little four year old THE question. Her response was short, yet it spoke volumes.

We had stopped at a Burger King at around ten or eleven o' clock at night. My daughter and I were already seated across from each other in a booth, and my sister was still at the counter waiting for her food. "So, Katie," I asked, half-joking and half-serious, "What's the meaning of life?" My four year old reached across the table top and pressed a chubby finger to my lips. "Shhhhhhhhhhh," she said. "You have to be quiet so you can hear the song..." Then she paused, took a bite of her cheeseburger, and added, "And if you drop your song, pick it up!" I was stunned, stopped in my tracks by what I had just heard. My sister, arriving at the booth, took one look at me, and asked, "What?"

I have gone back to Kina's four year old wisdom-story again and again, returning to her words many times as, in the busiest seasons of my life, I have struggled to hear "the song" underneath the chaos and disorder.

I have gone back to her words when I have found myself longingly searching for my song, knowing I had dropped it somewhere along the way.

I have passed her words on to other seekers, hoping that they, too, benefit from them.

As with many of the most powerful stories I know, Kina's spontaneous response resonated deeply for me when I first encountered it, and it continues to resonate deeply for me now. My understanding of her message has evolved and expanded as I have grown and changed. I have gained volumes of insight from this one tiny story moment... and to think: all I had to do to receive such profound wisdom was ask!

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...