Stories and Dialogue 1

Here's a fun discussion at Emerging Parents "What Do These Stones Mean." (10/11/07) Did I already post something about this? Here's more!

In some ways the stones are like the Creche at Christmastime at home and or at church. There are lots of Christian symbols you can use like that: the symbols of Advent, the symbols of Lent...symbols that bring stories to mind.

But the meaning of the stones by the Jordan was more than a corporate memory at the time. They triggered very personal memories. Stories. Experiences.

For the yet-to-be-born they would be hearing, and later sharing, someone else's stories like hearing stories from your parents and grandparents or your parents' friends and telling them to your children.

The "stones" you choose give you opportunity for story and conversation. Now is the time. Now you have opportunity, while your kids are home to share your stories and talk. You can keep simple things around you to trigger those stories. You can change them, rearrange them. In the OT, the stones stayed put. The people moved. We move or stay put. We get rid of "stuff" ... well, most people do ... Don't come to my house. Yes, it's much harder to get rid of all the stuff when there are stories attached...I'm trying to take pictures of story items before I get rid of them (if I get rid of them) but it's not the same.

Did I tell this story? My daughter is home for graduate school she spent the summer helping me clean, clean out, rearrange, paint, etc, etc. We don't know where she came from. [smile] Some ancient relative ... We start to re-arrange things. And one day she looks at me and says with a sigh, (and this was a revelation to everyone) "Mom,I arrange by color, size, and shape. You arrange by story. You put things together because they tell a story..." Yes, she gets quite frustrated with me... but she smiled. It was a cool revelation. Hey, that's what happens when you marry someone, you put the candles on the mantle and he moves them telling you he doesn't like symmetry...

Alot of stuff came home when my husbands parents died. One of my biggest regrets (besides losing them) was realizing when I opened the boxes that I never got to hear the stories...We could guess but it's not the same. [I'm really not condoning hoarding or clutter. I am condoning using the stuff of life to tell stories about life and faith.]

The bigger question here is how do we tell stories that generate dialogue?