Story, Heart, and the Unsung Hero

I thought you might enjoy yet another take on "story". Christine's thoughts at D-train, Northern Wales. (Don't worry about the Druids.)

It isn't that engaging our minds isn't important (over the years the church probably hasn't done enough of that either). But don't you think that the things that have the greatest affect on us and the things that stay with us are more tightly attached to our hearts than our minds? Maybe they start in the mind, but if they're going to stay, don't they have to end up in our hearts? I think my emotional memories are stronger than anything intellectual. I think that people who work with children have to tread lightly and carefully when they access a child's heart. But once you're there...

Last night (in the middle of the night, because I had to wake up sleep-deprived) I found a show on PBS about reading. Scientist/Educators are finding ways to enable autistic children to connect emotionally with the words that they can already read mechanically. They can read the words correctly but it doesn't mean anything to them. It's the emotional connection that enables them to actually comprehend what they're reading. The emotional understanding is more critical to comprehension than intellectual understanding. Interesting? I guess it was even more interesting because I'm reading a book about animals and autism Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin. If I understand it right, physical need for food and emotional need for food are different brain circuits. Physical, mental, emotional- independent yet inter-related. (She also wrote Thinking in Pictures and The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships.)

We manipulate and take advantage of emotional connections to sell our products, to further our agendas. We guard our hearts if we happen to find ourselves unwilling captives on the receiving end. Is it easier to guard our hearts or our minds?

Getting back to hearts and stories ... Sometimes God the Father is the hero, and sometimes He's made His Son the hero. But I've not thought about every story (and perhaps teaching and sharing the Word in general) as a place where Jesus leaves the Holy Spirit to be the hero touching and changing our hearts. Of course, He always points us to Jesus who points us to the Father. And sometimes He heals our bodies, and sometimes He changes our thinking, but He's still a hero. And I think, among the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is God's story heart-hero.

:)