Contemplative Coaching CornerChristmas Stories: Where is Love Born?
When your family gathers at the holiday times, what stories do you share? Are there special memories that are associated with the season? Are there people who tell the same stories year after year, yet while we may tire of the same story, it is as if the holiday is not complete without telling that story? Are there particular customs, traditions, or foods you come to expect as certain holidays? The stories, customs, and traditions that make communities make families, Churches, and ministries. It is also the stories that help us discover our calling. When you were a child, what were your favorite stories that captured your attention? Please think of the cultural icon stories you may have watched at Christmas time, A Christmas Carol, A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story, or maybe you watch all of the Hallmark, Freeform feel-good Christmas stories. Why are these stories are still important today so many years later? What is it these stories or others make you want to watch multiple times? What inspires you to connect to the season and these stories? What are your life stories that you still connect to the part of ‘who’ you are? Have you passed those stories on to others? There is a discernable thread in all of the stories this time of year. Whether is a prince coming to grips with taking on a new role of leadership and finding love in the ordinary. Or a person in crisis goes back to the fictional “small-town America” from the “big city life” to rediscover their roots and an alternative way of life, only to find new life again. All of these stories call us to rediscover where love is born? William J Bausch writes in his book Storytelling: Imagination and Faith: To be a person is to have a story. Without my story, I have no identity. I do not know who I am, or what I am about. If you have no story, how do you know where you’re going; and if you’re going somewhere, how will you know when you get there? A story is made up of the steppingstones along the footpath, markings up the side of the mountain, curves and detours along the highway of life. A story is not a fourlane “superslab” (CB jargon for highway) without stops, turns and returns. A story tells about struggle, without which life is boring. My personal story tells the zigzags in my life—the transitions and transformations. (pg 171).
As a Disciple of Jesus, you serve as one of the keepers of the Christian story. You not only continue to tell the story of the Christian community of Jesus, but you also hold onto the myths, legends, successes, and failures of the community. It is not simply as something of history that you share, but it also holds the powerful tool for Christianity's future by adding your story into the Christian story through your life of discipleship. Stories open us up to the sacramental reality of life; that is, they not only point to the Divine; they also participate in the life of the Divine. They open us up to hope. “Stories are designed to force us to consider possibilities.” (Bausch, 195) Stories are an art and not just a bunch of mere facts put together for information. Stories are meant to help in transformation. Thus the story is always more important than the facts. The early Church began from the stories that were told about Jesus and the life of the disciples. These stories are varied, and the traditions that come from telling those stories are just as varied. It is important to note that the story must exist first, not just the community. A community begins with those who are caught by the stories and then form a community around the story and then “savor it, reflect on it, retell it, preserve it, and pass it on.” (Bausch, 197). Because it is the nature of stories to precede and produce a community, then it is the nature of the tradition to ensure what is celebrated as true to the story and what is not true is denounced as not part of the community. In building communities, Disciples must not only know the stories but also be able to tell the story in a way to continue the original inspiration. Stories have a way in which a community tells what is accepted and denied in the community, without making demands and dictates of people. Stories have a way of helping the community connect the dots and make things whole, thus leaving it open to a diverse way of responding and not necessarily drawn to only one response. Because a story can evoke diverse ways of responding to them, the community must make their story their own in every age. In making the story their own, each generation “extracts from and adds to the story in a kind of symbiotic relationship.” (Bausch, 199). So What is Your Story? Where is Love born in your story? Where might you be called to serve by your story? How do you contribute to the continuing on the Jesus Story? Check out our December My Story Practice Tool for your own reflection this month! May you have a Blessed Advent and Merry Christmas! I welcome the opportunity to engage with you and your story. Send me an email about your My Story reflection process using our tool.
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