On moving forward through difficult times, part four: Why Stories Matter

"Stories teach us how to be human," writes Scott Russell Sanders (in one of my all-time favorite essays, The Power of Stories). "As I understand it, becoming fully human means learning to savor the world, to share in community, to see through the eyes of other people, to take reponsibility for our actions, to educate our desires, to dwell knowingly in time and place, to cope with suffering and death.

"We are creatures of instinct, but not solely of instinct. More than any other animal we must learn to behave. In this perennial effort, as Ursula K. Le Guin says, 'Story is our nearest and dearest way of understanding our lives and finding our way forward.' Skill is knowing how to do something; wisdom is knowing when and why to do it. While stories may display skills aplenty, in technique or character or plot, what the best of them offer is wisdom. They hold a living reservoir of human possibilities, telling us what has worked before, what has failed, what meaning and purpose and joy might be found.

"At the heart of many tales is a test, a puzzle, a riddle, a problem to solve; and that, surely, is the condition of our lives, both in detail -- as we decide how to act in the present moment -- and in general, as we seek to understand what it all means. Like so many characters, we are lost in a dark wood, a labyrinth, a swamp, and we need a trail of stories to show us the way back to our true home."

So please, creative people, keep telling those stories, in whatever medium you work in. Keep listening to the stories of others. Keep building those trails leading out of the dark woods.

And for those passing through the dark right now, stay safe. Stay open-hearted. Stay strong.

Scott Russell Sander's "The Power of Stories" was first published in The Georgie Review (Springm 1997), and can also be found in his essay collection The Force of Spirit (Beacon Press, 2000). The poem in the picture captions comes from The Antigonish Review (#126, 2001). All rights reserved by the authors.