|
Home
Sermon Archives
|
The Power of Storytelling:
“Thou Shalt Not” vs. “Once Upon a Time”
Delivered by
Fred Swift, August 13, 2006
At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, New Bern, NC
In the book “Lighthousekeeping” Jeanette Winterson has a poem that goes as follows:
Tell me a story, Pew
What kind of a story, child?
A story with a happy ending.
There is no such thing in all the world.
As a happy ending?
As an ending.
There is a British writer of fantasy, Philip Pullman, who was recently interviewed by Laura Miller, a writer for the New Yorker. He said a reader may accept the content of stories more readily if the stories are presented as “Once upon a time” stories rather than “Thou shalt not”.
According to Pullman “Thou shalt not” might reach the head, but it takes “Once upon a time” to reach the heart.
His fantasy tales are well known in Britain, less well known here. His audience is adolescents, but he is probably read even more by adults. His best known works are a trilogy known as his “Dark Materials.”
The first novel in the series, “THE GOLDEN COMPASS” , begins with a passage from Milton’s “Paradise Lost’ where Satan is contemplating his prospects after being cast out of Heaven by God; Satan is trying to rally his followers in Hell:
Into this wild abyss,
The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all of these in their pregnant causes mixed
Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the almighty maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more worlds,
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend
Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while,
Pondering his voyage…
In the interview Pullman refers to what he calls the “Literary School of Morals”. For example, we learn from Macbeth’s fate that killing is horrible for the killer as well as the victim. In the “Literary School of Morals” the stories are often ambiguous as a guide to morality. A story teller is preeminently a person with a story to tell. A good story generally doesn’t hit you over the head with its moral intent. An author who writes that type of story might be more effective as a policeman, or a judge, or as a professor of ethics.
Most readers would agree that “THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN” is an American classic. Imagine Huckleberry Finn’s and Jim’s relationship to each other without the moral question of slavery or equality. What we would have is not a great American classic, but rather a mildly interesting travel story set in the mid-1800’s, life on the Mississippi.
At the beginning of the story Twain warns the reader that anyone attempting to find a moral in the story will be banished. He was joking, of course, he knew that wasn’t true. The story is shot through with moral dilemmas.
The “Literary School of Morals”, although it may lead to ambiguity and is characterized by nuances and subtleties, nevertheless can be a force in a person’s moral development. The influence may continue for a lifetime.
Literature may be of special value to UU members, who, for the most part, favor education over indoctrination, as evidenced by our lack of dogma supporting our faith.
Storytelling is a valued method of communication in the Fellowship. The group that meets Thursday mornings for discussion of MYTHS AND METAPHORS is evidence of that. I expect that if we could canonize any individual, one of the first candidates would be Joseph Campbell.
A good story, told well, pulls you in and you are trapped. The other night we were watching the Bill Moyer’s series on FAITH AND REASON. He was interviewing Jeanette Winterson, whose poem I quoted earlier. He described her as a storyteller who takes ancient myths and turns them into parables for our time---putting us in touch with deep truths about human experience.
Bill was curious. How was it that a girl raised by Pentecostal parents in a house of utter poverty,--- no bank account, no phone, no indoor plumbing, --- how does a girl raised like that end up at Oxford studying ancient myths?
Jeanette: My mother was terrified of any secular influences entering our lives. We had only six books in the house---the Bible and five books about the Bible.
But I had a job and was making some money and began to buy books. And I smuggled them into the house and hid them under the bed.
Now, according to Jeanette, anybody with a single bed, standard size, and a collection of paperbacks, standard size, will know that exactly seventy-seven can be accommodated under the mattress. And that is what she did. And over time her bed began to rise visibly.
But one night her mother, being of a suspicious nature, spotted a corner of a book poking out and tugged at it. A disastrous choice. D. H. Laurence’s WOMEN IN LOVE.
Her mother knew that Laurence was a Satanist and a pornographer, because her mother was an intelligent women. She had simply barricaded books out of her life and she had to barricade them out of her daughter’s life. And when challenged, her defense was “Well, the trouble with books was that you never know what’s in them until it’s too late”.
Her mother knew that a good story can pull you in and you are trapped.
I bought a book the other day, one of a penguin classic series. I knew nothing about the book, “Cold Comfort Farm” by Stella Gibbons. I was attracted to the cover.
First paragraph; “The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had
been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living”
I was trapped by the humor.
Philip Pullman’s “Literary School of Morals” is inherently ambiguous, thought-provoking, challenging, and leads to questions, and is dynamic, --- but democratic.
This is contrasted by Pullman from what he calls a THEOCRACY, which is characterized by scripture whose word is inerrant, and a priesthood with concentrated authority, particularly into the hands of elderly men, and, historically at least, with the powers of an inquisition.
Theocracies, he says, DEMONSTRATE THE TENDENCY OF HUMAN BEINGS TO GATHER POWER TO THEMSELVES IN THE NAME OF SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE QUESTIONED.
Theocracies, he says, DEMONSTRATE THE TENDENCY OF HUMAN BEINGS TO GATHER POWER TO THEMSELVES IN THE NAME OF SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE QUESTIONED.
For example, a secretive, authoritative regime that regards differing opinions as being “unpatriotic, or “helping the enemy”, or “ not supporting our troops”….
One of the most foolish statements that I have ever made, and that covers a rather mind-boggling array of subjects…
And I made it in this very building to a small group of people at the Myth and Metaphor group ….
I said that I grew up as a church and Sunday school-going boy, was baptized, was familiar with the King James Bible and certainly heard it read a lot, but you know “I never believed a word of it”!
As though it had absolutely no effect on me. ….or if it had, it would be more on the order of a superstition, like bad luck might follow walking under a ladder…
Well, let me remind myself of one of the stories that I heard in Sunday School, probably more than once, since it was a favorite instructional text….
Luke Chapter 10: verses 25-37
Now, did that story, and I am calling it a story, teach me something about moral development, what’s right and what’s wrong? Seventy years later I’m still remembering the story and referring back to it.
To me the story of the good Samaritan is a “Once upon a time” story. Maybe it happened…Maybe it didn’t. It’s not the literal truth of the story that matters.
Maybe in some bibles it is printed in a really dark pink type; maybe its light pink in others; maybe some scholars think that Jesus never said it at all.
It the power of a simple story to impart a simple truth that matters.
Before moving here we lived in a very sparsely populated part of North Carolina. Many of the services were carried out by volunteers. First responders in one way or another…firemen {or fire women), ambulance drivers and so on.
There you could see first hand who your neighbor was, because basically most everyone was a neighbor. In more rural areas of Eastern Carolina, it’s a similar situation…
It is in the spirit of that story that first responders get out of bed in the middle of night, don their gear, and go off in an effort to rescue some neighbor whose life is in danger or who needs rescuing, or driving to an emergency room.
Who is my neighbor? How should I treat my neighbor? The good Samaritan is a simple, powerful, ageless story. I know first-hand that there are members of this congregation that have taken this story to heart.
Now, on the other hand we have many admonitions in the old testament of the “Thou shalt not” type.
“Thou shalt not kill”.
I’ve never killed anyone and never expect to. Fortunately, I have never been placed in a situation where I have been tested.
But if I did , the question would not be decided by morality or a question of right or wrong. I believe that killing is wrong, either by individuals acting on their own or as instruments of governments.
It would be determined at a much more primitive level, some animal instinct, much as a mother defending her child.
Some specific literature that skillfully incorporates an important moral guideline into a well-told story…. Of the countless number of books of fiction from which to choose, I have chosen three specific books, two of fiction and one nonfiction:
SILAS MARNER by George Eliot: published in 1861, a story about a man who was completely alienated physically and spiritually from society, through a series of events, but then circumstances delivered to him a child (a two-year-old golden -haired girl), seemingly an orphan. It’s the story of the resurrecting power of love,…… how Silas determines to raise the child as his own,….. and how the child’s unconditional love and trust for the man she believes to be her father brings him back into the community. It also illustrates the power of the community to rescue alienated individuals. And it is beautiful prose.
The second book is a novel by Albert Camus entitled “The Plague” (1947). It was written during a most depressing time in European history, especially French history: France had been over-run by the Nazis, and the French resistance fighters, such as Camus, were dispirited. The setting for the novel was the Algerian port of ORAN, which is being overwhelmed by bubonic plague, symbolic, I suppose, of the Nazi’s overrunning of Europe. I am attracted to the novel because the protagonist, Dr Rieux, a medical doctor, exemplifies, to me, a non-heroic hero, who keeps doing what good he can despite being overwhelmed by the onslaught of the disease.
Speaking to his friend RAMBERT, (who is trying desperately to get out of Oran, even
though he will be shot if he is caught in the attempt, Dr Rieux says: “You’re right, Rambert, quite right, and for nothing in the world would I try to dissuade you from what you are going to do; it seems to me absolutely right and proper. However, there is one thing I must tell you: there is no question of heroism in all this. It’s a matter of common decency. That’s an idea that may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is common decency.
“What do you mean by “common decency”, Rambert’s tone was grave.
“I don’t know what it means for other people. But in my case I know it consists in doing my job”
The last book on my list, “My Own Country”, is an account of one doctor’s battle against AIDS in the small city of Johnson City, TN. The author is Abraham Verghese. Dr Verghese is a doctor trained in India who, in 1985, began his residence at the Johnson City Medical Center, known locally as the “Miracle Center” , shortly after the first case of AIDS was rolled into the Emergency Room. Because he specialized in infectious diseases, Dr Verghese was the primary physician involved with the care and treatment of AIDS victims.
Deborah and I are quite familiar with Johnson City and, also, the Medical Center; it was closer to us than Asheville.
Johnson City, TN was not supposed to have to face an AIDS problem. Nestled in the BIBLE BELT and the foothills of the SMOKEY MOUNTAINS, AIDS was supposed to be a big city problem, and the first victim (the one who was rolled into the emergency room) had been desperately trying to get back to his parents in Johnson City from New York City when he was carried into the emergency room. But in the next few years Dr Verghese would devote his life to the treatment of aid patients and, equally important, fighting the intolerance and prejudices that surrounded the disease. His dedication cost him dearly in his personal life…… basically he no longer had a personal life. In the next few years he treated and took charge of 80 AIDS patients and fought the prejudices and misinformation associated with the disease, both from people in the surrounding community and from members of his own staff. In many ways Dr Verghese reminds me of Dr Rieux in THE PLAGUE where Dr Rieux says there is no question of heroism in all of this. it’s a matter of common decency. What is “common decency?” “I don’t know what it means for other people. But in my case I know it consists in doing my job”.
THE POWER OF STORYTELLING
“THOU SHALT NOT” vs. “ONCE UPON A TIME”
In the book “Lighthousekeeping” Jeanette Winterson has a poem that goes as follows:
Tell me a story, Pew
What kind of a story, child?
A story with a happy ending.
There is no such thing in all the world.
As a happy ending?
As an ending.
There is a British writer of fantasy, Philip Pullman, who was recently interviewed by Laura Miller, a writer for the New Yorker. He said a reader may accept the content of stories more readily if the stories are presented as “Once upon a time” stories rather than “Thou shalt not”.
According to Pullman “Thou shalt not” might reach the head, but it takes “Once upon a time” to reach the heart.
His fantasy tales are well known in Britain, less well known here. His audience is adolescents, but he is probably read even more by adults. His best known works are a trilogy known as his “Dark Materials.”
The first novel in the series, “THE GOLDEN COMPASS” , begins with a passage from Milton’s “Paradise Lost’ where Satan is contemplating his prospects after being cast out of Heaven by God; Satan is trying to rally his followers in Hell:
Into this wild abyss,
The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all of these in their pregnant causes mixed
Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the almighty maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more worlds,
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend
Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while,
Pondering his voyage…
In the interview Pullman refers to what he calls the “Literary School of Morals”. For example, we learn from Macbeth’s fate that killing is horrible for the killer as well as the victim. In the “Literary School of Morals” the stories are often ambiguous as a guide to morality. A story teller is preeminently a person with a story to tell. A good story generally doesn’t hit you over the head with its moral intent. An author who writes that type of story might be more effective as a policeman, or a judge, or as a professor of ethics.
Most readers would agree that “THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN” is an American classic. Imagine Huckleberry Finn’s and Jim’s relationship to each other without the moral question of slavery or equality. What we would have is not a great American classic, but rather a mildly interesting travel story set in the mid-1800’s, life on the Mississippi.
At the beginning of the story Twain warns the reader that anyone attempting to find a moral in the story will be banished. He was joking, of course, he knew that wasn’t true. The story is shot through with moral dilemmas.
The “Literary School of Morals”, although it may lead to ambiguity and is characterized by nuances and subtleties, nevertheless can be a force in a person’s moral development. The influence may continue for a lifetime.
Literature may be of special value to UU members, who, for the most part, favor education over indoctrination, as evidenced by our lack of dogma supporting our faith.
Storytelling is a valued method of communication in the Fellowship. The group that meets Thursday mornings for discussion of MYTHS AND METAPHORS is evidence of that. I expect that if we could canonize any individual, one of the first candidates would be Joseph Campbell.
A good story, told well, pulls you in and you are trapped. The other night we were watching the Bill Moyer’s series on FAITH AND REASON. He was interviewing Jeanette Winterson, whose poem I quoted earlier. He described her as a storyteller who takes ancient myths and turns them into parables for our time---putting us in touch with deep truths about human experience.
Bill was curious. How was it that a girl raised by Pentecostal parents in a house of utter poverty,--- no bank account, no phone, no indoor plumbing, --- how does a girl raised like that end up at Oxford studying ancient myths?
Jeanette: My mother was terrified of any secular influences entering our lives. We had only six books in the house---the Bible and five books about the Bible.
But I had a job and was making some money and began to buy books. And I smuggled them into the house and hid them under the bed.
Now, according to Jeanette, anybody with a single bed, standard size, and a collection of paperbacks, standard size, will know that exactly seventy-seven can be accommodated under the mattress. And that is what she did. And over time her bed began to rise visibly.
But one night her mother, being of a suspicious nature, spotted a corner of a book poking out and tugged at it. A disastrous choice. D. H. Laurence’s WOMEN IN LOVE.
Her mother knew that Laurence was a Satanist and a pornographer, because her mother was an intelligent women. She had simply barricaded books out of her life and she had to barricade them out of her daughter’s life. And when challenged, her defense was “Well, the trouble with books was that you never know what’s in them until it’s too late”.
Her mother knew that a good story can pull you in and you are trapped.
I bought a book the other day, one of a penguin classic series. I knew nothing about the book, “Cold Comfort Farm” by Stella Gibbons. I was attracted to the cover.
First paragraph; “The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had
been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living”
I was trapped by the humor.
Philip Pullman’s “Literary School of Morals” is inherently ambiguous, thought-provoking, challenging, and leads to questions, and is dynamic, --- but democratic.
This is contrasted by Pullman from what he calls a THEOCRACY, which is characterized by scripture whose word is inerrant, and a priesthood with concentrated authority, particularly into the hands of elderly men, and, historically at least, with the powers of an inquisition.
Theocracies, he says, DEMONSTRATE THE TENDENCY OF HUMAN BEINGS TO GATHER POWER TO THEMSELVES IN THE NAME OF SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE QUESTIONED.
REPEAT
For example, a secretive, authoritative regime that regards differing opinions as being “unpatriotic, or “helping the enemy”, or “ not supporting our troops”….
One of the most foolish statements that I have ever made, and that covers a rather mind-boggling array of subjects…
And I made it in this very building to a small group of people at the Myth and Metaphor group ….
I said that I grew up as a church and Sunday school-going boy, was baptized, was familiar with the King James Bible and certainly heard it read a lot, but you know “I never believed a word of it”!
As though it had absolutely no effect on me. ….or if it had, it would be more on the order of a superstition, like bad luck might follow walking under a ladder…
Well, let me remind myself of one of the stories that I heard in Sunday School, probably more than once, since it was a favorite instructional text….
Luke Chapter 10: verses 25-37
Now, did that story, and I am calling it a story, teach me something about moral development, what’s right and what’s wrong? Seventy years later I’m still remembering the story and referring back to it.
To me the story of the good Samaritan is a “Once upon a time” story. Maybe it happened…Maybe it didn’t. It’s not the literal truth of the story that matters.
Maybe in some bibles it is printed in a really dark pink type; maybe its light pink in others; maybe some scholars think that Jesus never said it at all.
It the power of a simple story to impart a simple truth that matters.
Before moving here we lived in a very sparsely populated part of North Carolina. Many of the services were carried out by volunteers. First responders in one way or another…firemen {or fire women), ambulance drivers and so on.
There you could see first hand who your neighbor was, because basically most everyone was a neighbor. In more rural areas of Eastern Carolina, it’s a similar situation…
It is in the spirit of that story that first responders get out of bed in the middle of night, don their gear, and go off in an effort to rescue some neighbor whose life is in danger or who needs rescuing, or driving to an emergency room.
Who is my neighbor? How should I treat my neighbor? The good Samaritan is a simple, powerful, ageless story. I know first-hand that there are members of this congregation that have taken this story to heart.
Now, on the other hand we have many admonitions in the old testament of the “Thou shalt not” type.
“Thou shalt not kill”.
I’ve never killed anyone and never expect to. Fortunately, I have never been placed in a situation where I have been tested.
But if I did , the question would not be decided by morality or a question of right or wrong. I believe that killing is wrong, either by individuals acting on their own or as instruments of governments.
It would be determined at a much more primitive level, some animal instinct, much as a mother defending her child.
Some specific literature that skillfully incorporates an important moral guideline into a well-told story…. Of the countless number of books of fiction from which to choose, I have chosen three specific books, two of fiction and one nonfiction:
SILAS MARNER by George Eliot: published in 1861, a story about a man who was completely alienated physically and spiritually from society, through a series of events, but then circumstances delivered to him a child (a two-year-old golden -haired girl), seemingly an orphan. It’s the story of the resurrecting power of love,…… how Silas determines to raise the child as his own,….. and how the child’s unconditional love and trust for the man she believes to be her father brings him back into the community. It also illustrates the power of the community to rescue alienated individuals. And it is beautiful prose.
The second book is a novel by Albert Camus entitled “The Plague” (1947). It was written during a most depressing time in European history, especially French history: France had been over-run by the Nazis, and the French resistance fighters, such as Camus, were dispirited. The setting for the novel was the Algerian port of ORAN, which is being overwhelmed by bubonic plague, symbolic, I suppose, of the Nazi’s overrunning of Europe. I am attracted to the novel because the protagonist, Dr Rieux, a medical doctor, exemplifies, to me, a non-heroic hero, who keeps doing what good he can despite being overwhelmed by the onslaught of the disease.
Speaking to his friend RAMBERT, (who is trying desperately to get out of Oran, even thought he will be shot if he is caught in the attempt, Dr Rieux says: “You’re right, Rambert, quite right, and for nothing in the world would I try to dissuade you from what you are going to do; it seems to me absolutely right and proper. However, there is one thing I must tell you: there is no question of heroism in all this. It’s a matter of common decency. That’s an idea that may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is common decency.
“What do you mean by “common decency”, Rambert’s tone was grave.
“I don’t know what it means for other people. But in my case I know it consists in doing my job”
The last book on my list, “My Own Country”, is an account of one doctor’s battle against AIDS in the small city of Johnson City, TN. The author is Abraham Verghese. Dr Verghese is a doctor trained in India who, in 1985, began his residence at the Johnson City Medical Center, known locally as the “Miracle Center” , shortly after the first case of AIDS was rolled into the Emergency Room. Because he specialized in infectious diseases, Dr Verghese was the primary physician involved with the care and treatment of AIDS victims.
Deborah and I are quite familiar with Johnson City and, also, the Medical Center; it was closer to us than Asheville.
Johnson City, TN was not supposed to have to face an AIDS problem. Nestled in the BIBLE BELT and the foothills of the SMOKEY MOUNTAINS, AIDS was supposed to be a big city problem, and the first victim (the one who was rolled into the emergency room) had been desperately trying to get back to his parents in Johnson City from New York City when he was carried into the emergency room. But in the next few years Dr Verghese would devote his life to the treatment of aid patients and, equally important, fighting the intolerance and prejudices that surrounded the disease. His dedication cost him dearly in his personal life…… basically he no longer had a personal life. In the next few years he treated and took charge of 80 AIDS patients and fought the prejudices and misinformation associated with the disease, both from people in the surrounding community and from members of his own staff. In many ways Dr Verghese reminds me of Dr Rieux in THE PLAGUE where Dr Rieux says there is no question of heroism in all of this. it’s a matter of common decency. What is “common decency?” “I don’t know what it means for other people. But in my case I know it consists in doing my job”.
|
