Newspaper Page Text
October 29,1981
PAGE 5
How Storytelling
BY NEIL PARENT
Some years ago, I was a member of a parish
group that was meeting as part of a Lenten
program. Each week, we read and discussed
the scripture selections for the coming
Sunday Mass.
During one session, some members began
telling how they experienced periods now and
then when they had doubts about aspects of
their faith.
In the midst of the discussion, a man in
his early 70s lowered his head and quietly
began to weep. Astonished and concerned, we
immediately attempted to discover the cause
of his distress.
In a voice choked with emotion, he began
to explain that his tears were from relief, not
They begin to see how the journey of belief is
lived out in the lives of other people. They
begin to know they are not alone.
Of course, there are many other kinds of
stories about belief that could be told. And
telling them provides opportunities for others
to see how God acts in our own lives and in the
lives of others.
Listening as others share their stories, we
are given another frame of reference that can
help us understand ourselves as Christians.
Each story of faith carries a message for us
as well as for the person who shares it. That is
why, down through the ages, the church has
placed before believers the stories of saints -
persons whose lives the church deems
eminently worthy of our study and
emulation.
KNOW
YOUR FAITH
(All Articles On This Page Copyrighted 1981 By N.C. News Service)
S 1 . /
from sorrow. He had just come to realize for
the first time, as a result of our exchanges,
that he was not the only one who ever
experienced any questions about faith. He
was not alone.
For years, the man continued, he
considered himself out of favor with God
because he could not fully resolve all his
questions. There were times, he explained,
when he even wondered about God’s very
existence.
He went on to movingly describe how,
when he went to Mass on Sundays, he would
sit in the back of the church because he felt
unworthy to be in the house of God.
He recalled how frequently he would
search the faces of others at church to see if he
could detect another person who also was in
anguish. But everyone appeared so devout, he
reported, and he felt all the more alone.
Finally, he thanked the group for helping
him to see his struggles in a new light - to
recognize that there are other active believers
who sometimes go through periods when God
seems far away. He said it was as if a great
burden of guilt and self-criticism had been
lifted from him.
The experience made me more aware than
ever of the importance of telling about our
belief.
I have told this very particular kind of
story here because it so clearly illustrates what
can happen when people exchange personal
stories about their lives as people of belief.
A theologian named H. Richard Niebuhr
once said that the church is virtually unable to
define its meaning except through telling the
story of its life. The church does this through
the Scriptures and through its liturgy or
public worship.
The themes of sin and redemption, pain
and healing, death and resurrection are found
in the Gospels and in every age of the church’s
life. These same themes are found in our
personal stories of faith.
In disclosing our faith to others, we
frequently gain new insights of our own in the
process. Looking back at our journey in life
can bring to light some important aspect that
previously had escaped our attention. Faith,
like life itself, seems to be lived forward, but
best understood backward.
Through sharing our stories of belief, we
can raise the levels of trust and acceptance
that bind us together as believers. We give
enriched meaning to our common identity as
Christians.
A Christian community, like a family,
requires a certain degree of trust and personal
openness among members if an environment
that is supportive is to be created. It is hard to
see how Christian communities can become
true communities if members remain
strangers to one another.
When we share our own stories with others,
we identify ourselves not only with our fellow
believers, but also with the present pulse and
the venerable history of our church.
Lesson On Discipleship
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
Early Christian tradition preserved varying
stories about the call of the first disciples.
According to the tradition used in the
fourth Gospel, for instance, the call took
place in the South, in the area where John was
baptizing. The first to be called were Andrew
and an unnamed disciple.
In Mark’s Gospel, the theological reasons
for writing the Gospel control his account of
the call of the first disciples. Mark places the
call at the Sea of Galilee - a logical deduction
from the fact that the men were plying their
trade as fishermen.
This sets the scene for the ministry of Jesus
which will be carried out in the vicinity of the
lake. While the Sea of Galilee is a pretentious
name for a lake, it is a good sized body of
water, about 12 miles long and 7 miles wide at
its farthest extremities. Teeming with fish, the
Sea of Galilee yields about six tons a day with
modern equipment and techniques.
Mark puts the call of the first disciples at
the very beginning of the ministry, before
Jesus has done or said anything to attract
attention. Presumably Mark wants to
introduce these men who will figure in the
incidents he will go on to narrate.
But there is also the suggestion that Jesus
will accomplish his task with the help of
others. They do not have to be brilliant or rich
or powerful; they need to follow in his
footsteps. It is, after all, the work of Jesus
they will be doing.
And this is apparently Mark’s purpose in
this story: a lesson on discipleship. Mark
devotes a great deal of attention to the theme
of discipleship throughout the whole Gospel -
probably because he is writing for a
community which needs instruction on this
point.
This theological purpose should make the
reader wary of looking for consistent
psychological motivation in the narrative. For
instance:
- Why should Simon and Andrew just drop
everything and follow one who is presumably
a complete stranger?
- Why should James and John similarly
abandon not only their nets, but their father
as well?
Mark had more important concerns than
those raised by such questions.
When Jesus approaches the fishermen, he
says simply: “Follow after me.” This is the
call to discipleship. Not only are they to
follow, but to follow “after” him. The
disciple must tread the same path as the
master, a theme that will be stressed over and
over again by Mark.
If the brothers answer the call without
question, it is because Mark wants to impress
his readers with the importance of responding
to the call of discipleship promptly,
unselfishly, even at the cost of sacrifice
amounting to complete renunciation.
It is hardly likely that these men would
have understood Jesus’ references to making
them “fishers of men.” The phrase was not
unknown in the culture of the day, but it was
used in the hostile sense of trapping people.
The Christian reader, of course, knows that
these disciples will be designated apostles
later, with the ministry of gathering people
into the embrace of God’s saving love.
But discipleship precedes apostleship and
is common to all Christians. Being a disciple
consists of responding to the call of Christ and
following a person - not a teaching, not an
ethical system, not an ideal - but Jesus
himself - if need be, to the cross.
Discussion
Points And Questions
1. Think about your favorite biblical story. Why do you like it? Is there
any way the story reminds you about something in your own life? How?
2. Neil Parent recounts a personal experience with a discussion group.
What surprised him about this event?
3. According to Parent, how is each story of faith a vignette of God’s
activity?
4. In Katharine Bird’s article, what does Father John Shea mean by
saying no one listens to a Bible story neutrally?
5. As explained by Ms. Bird, what are the two sides of storytelling? Is
one kind of storytelling more important than the other?
6. What point was Mark trying to make in telling about the call of the
first disciples? What did it mean to “follow after” Jesus?
INCREASING NUMBERS OF CATHOLICS are coming to
appreciate the benefits of sharing their faith in a personal way
with one another. Sharing our stories of faith can be
opportunities for gaining insights into how God is acting in
our lives as well as the lives of others. (NC Photo by Dale G.
Folstad)
Storytelling Can Be Fun
BY KATHARINE BIRD
No one listens to a Bible story neutrally,
said Father John Shea, a theologian at St.
Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Ill.
Instead, we listen and “automatically look at
what impact the story can have in our own
lives,” he explained.
When people listen to the parable of the
Prodigal Son, they quite naturally begin to
relate the story to “their own family life,”
Father Shea added, “They think about the
parent-child relationship and the questions of
resentment and abandonment.”
Father Shea thinks that people are either
telling stories or listening to stories all the
time. It happens when people are sitting
around the kitchen table, for instance. Parents
tell children how they met and about
grandfather’s problems and happy times.
The theologian explained there are two
sides to storytelling.
1. the personal stories individuals tell of
themselves, their families and ethnic groups;
2. the stories told and retold by a
community.
Both kinds help to illuminate the journey
of belief for Christians.
According to Father Shea, the individual’s
story is significant because it is “the story of
myself, the history of those times of grace and
freedom when I am touched by something
more than myself.”
When people tell their own stories, he
suggested, it somehow gives them a new
insight into their own values.
On the other hand, the stories passed on
from generation to generation by a
community exert a powerful influence
because they connect individuals with their
tradition. In Christianity, these stories retell
the events of Jesus’ life and those of the
Christian community.
As part of the church’s revelation, the
stories continue to be told, Father Shea
believes, because they allow people to listen
again to times when their ancestors
experienced grace and hope. At the same
time, the community story “intersects our
individual story” and helps us understand our
lives today, the theologian stated.
The process of translating the
community’s stories into individual lives
works very effectively in a group setting,
Father Shea asserted. To illustrate, he related
an experience he had with a group at a
workshop.
The Bible story involved was about the
woman taken in adultery and brought before
Jesus to be stoned. Father Shea explained that
the group began with the question of stoning
the woman and soon found themselves
discussing stone throwing in a contemporary
setting.
First one person and then another
observed that certain people in their
neighborhoods or at work seemed to be
chronically put down by others. Next, Father
Shea related, people switched into a
STORIES PASSED on from
generation to generation by a
community exert a powerful influence
because they connect individuals with
their tradition. In Christianity, these
stories retell the events of Jesus’ life
and those of the Christian community.
(NC Photo by James L. Shaffer)
conversation about gossip and the harm it
causes.
According to the theologian, the story, as
Christian stories often do, brought to the
surface an everlasting concern for people:
How do you live in a world where justice is so
difficult to achieve?
The author of a recently published book
about why Christians tell their stories, called
“Stories of Faith,” Father Shea finds people
are usually shy at the beginning of workshops
or seminars. Therefore, he strongly favors an
indirect approach for leading people into
telling their stories.
Don’t ask people, “What is your image of
God?” he said. Such a direct question “always
freezes a group.” Instead, Father Shea
recommended using easy opening questions
which draw on people’s own experiences.
Questions he often uses include:
“Is there a story people always tell about
your mother?”
“What is the funniest thing that ever
happened to you?”
“Think of a time when you were really
lonely and tell us about it.
“Tell me about one time when you felt a
deep sense of mystery in your own life. ”
Mothers almost always respond to the last
question by talking about the birth of their
children, Father Shea said. Other times,
individuals respond with experiences related
to death or the beauty of nature.
Sometimes, the answer to the question is
related to a time when people “have felt a
significant shift in their ambitions about life,”
he mused. Often people have a sense of
mystery when they are struggling to “reach
conclusions about how to live.”
Helps Make A Community
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