Professional Documents
Culture Documents
by Doug Floyd
I love stories. From ballads to books to movies and more, I love stories. Dinner time in my fam
ily’s house often centered around the stories of my father and his adventures in the FBI. Early on,
I developed the habit of listening intently. While I love to talk, I love to listen as well. I never
know what I might discover in the person across from me. Sometimes I fail to listen and I regret
it. But those times when I hear, when I really hear and encounter another person: those times are
rich and full of wonder.
Stories are grand. Stories are magical. Stories make me feel. They make me laugh and cry and
experience the world. Sometimes they make me angry or sad. Stories tap something deep inside
me that is often inexplicable. They move me.
And yet, stories can sometimes feel manipulative. I don’t like when I watch a movie and I feel
like the filmmaker has underlined his main idea with a bright red marker. Suddenly the story is
interrupted with his “message.” I have endured some interesting films even when the “moral”
was slapping me in the face. Sometimes Christians can exercise the worst at this form of
storytelling. We want to make sure everyone “gets it.”
So our stories and our movies and our personal “testimonies” focus on emphasizing, exaggerating
the point. (And politicians run a pretty close second to us Christians in the “use” of stories.)
Oddly, when the story becomes a vehicle, it loses a bit of the wonder. It may seem contrived. It
may offend. It may come across as a bit hollow.
Years ago, I remember a politician using the story of his son to make a political point. The story
came across as flat and the point a bit overbearing. The press let him know through their reports
that the use of a deeply painful and personal story dehumanized him a bit as a leader.
And yet, it’s not necessarily bad to make a point with a story or to convey truth through a story.
Storytelling plays a central role in Jesus’ pattern of ministry. I believe His stories, and oddly
enough, I believe He is still speaking to me (us) in the stories. So you might call me a believer or
a Christian. I believe that in His stories and speaking, there is an objective encounter with truth
that goes beyond “idea” and is more directly related to “person.” At one point, Jesus says that it is
the Spirit who draws people to Him.
He speaks and the Spirit of God is moving and through Him to open the eyes of the listening to
hear the person standing in front of them. In other words, the objective truth is the person of Je
sus (Word made Flesh). Thus He is speaking and embodying His story at the same time. Some
people want to argue with him, but some actually adore Him.
With this in mind, I might suggest that a story is the gift of myself to another. Yes, there may be
ideas or thoughts or insight that can be helpful, but the objective reality is one person standing in
front of another person. When I hear a story, I am going out to encounter the person (as Martin
Buber would say), I am not trying to take their story into myself, so I can experience it. For if that
is all I do, I’ve reduced that person to some objective extension of myself and my own experi
ence. But I might actual listen to the person. I might actually face the objective reality behind the
story. I might actually encounter their “spirit” (the fullness of the person so to speak). And Buber
went so far as to say that when I face the “thou” (person) before me, I might just face the “Eternal
Person.” And when I encounter the person, I am changed.
This helps me to think about telling and listening to stories (whether in writing or in person or
film or song or whatever). I may use a story to illustrate a point, but I must remember that I am
speaking to real persons, I am encountering another person in my words. I give them the story as
a gift of myself, and I hear their stories as a gift of their selves. It might help me to face people
and listen to them (and not just their ideas).
I haven’t worked out all the implications of this in relation to preaching, politics, etc. And maybe
I’ll write more as I think more about it. But for now I’ll pause with the idea that the truth I am
getting to in story is person. And as a believer, I will add (alongside Martin Buber) that in all en
counters there is freedom for another Person to address me and encounter me with the reality of
His Unending Life.