Why Stories Matter

Dec 20

Long story shortest: Stories matter because they make us believe, expand our imaginations, and cultivate connection.

My parents had a real challenge when I was a kid: I acted out every story I saw on the screen. So my folks had to be really particular in what they let me and my brother see—because we were definitely going to run some play scenarios around the plots. I can remember trying to jump off the rocking horse or running as fast as I could off the diving board to see if I could fly like Peter Pan. Since much of my later childhood was immersed in an unconditional love of The Lord of the Rings (happy 20-year birthday to the first film!), nearly all the make-believe my brother and friends and I created on the three sloping hills behind our house involved swords, adventure, and defeating the bad guys.

Why share this with you? Because stories have the stunning power to make us believe. Make us believe what? Whatever the story is telling us.

*My brother (right) and I (left) in our knights’ armor Halloween costume that we definitely wore again after that night.*

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this question, “Why do stories matter?” And right now, I’m landing here: Stories matter because they make us believe, expand our imaginations, and cultivate connection.

Stories, more than any other form of communication, have been the ability to convince us. To inspire us to act. To help us see something in a new way. I have had the privilege of sitting with bereaved and traumatized people in conflicted countries around the world, listening to their stories. And without exception, when they spoke about their enemies—the people that traumatized and bereaved them—the only experience that ever truly transformed their relationship to their enemies was hearing the others’ stories. No amount of arguments or well-articulated philosophies or justifications ever changed their minds. Only stories.

One of the lessons this has taught me is that stories are power. They can be medicine, robust and healing. And they can be weapons, ruthless and waylaying. They are muscular devices. Stories can transform us, whether toward better or worse versions of ourselves. And so it’s really good idea to pay careful attention to which stories we pay attention to.

One of the books I love is In the Shelter, written by Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama. He also happens to be an old friend. In one section of his book, he explores the etymology of the word story: “My Dictionary of Etymology tells me that the history of the word holds meanings of ‘wise-man’ and the verb ‘to see.’ To tell a story well is to see wisely, I say to myself.” (p. 106)

I love this: Stories help us see. What, and in what way, they help us see depends on the story.

The stories we tell inform the breadth of our imaginations. They can help foster creative and vast imaginations, that lead young boys like me to believe they can fly or have what it takes to conquer evil with an old broomstick-turned-pretend-sword. Stories can help us find order and meaning within chaos, help us get our bearings when we feel lost. And they can foster bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness when told without wisdom.

What are wise stories? Wise stories are those that know that someone else might tell the story differently. Wise stories know there is never truly one villain and never only one hero. Wise stories know that sometimes, maybe even most times, people can be both. Wise stories know that the wisest stories are not told by the people in power. Wise stories open us toward a fuller embrace of the world and therefore help us face the truth around us and name it from what it is.

Finally, I believe some of the highest goals of storytelling should be telling the truth and cultivating empathy in service of reconciling relationships. One of my favorite quotes about stories goes like this: “The shortest distance between two people is a story.” I don’t know who first said it (there are lots of attributions online), but they knew something true. There is a strange and powerful capacity of a story to create a nearly instantaneous connection between people—even former enemies.

And it’s this mysterious ability of story to connect that we will deal with this next.