Between the Listening and the Telling Quotes

“We map our world in story. The world falls apart. We map a new world. Again and again we story our lives in order to situate ourselves: I am here, not there. I am here and long to go there. Once found, new possibilities emerge. Curiosity rises within us. We feel the pull to discover new countries, traverse new oceans.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“We live in a world that is alive and generous and in need of care. Strangely, paradoxically, it is in serving and singing and telling our stories to one another that we discover the homecoming we’ve been longing for has been here, among and within us, along.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“To expose ourselves to another human's journey is to not only hear the ground truth but also to allow our hearts to soften and our minds to open so that we can access greater empathy, compassion, and trust. So that we can offer the same hospitality to others that we ourselves long to receive.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“Like all human beings I want to be changed, transformed - made more whole, more loving, more free. I want to live with a sense of meaningful purpose. I want to coax forth the angel of my better nature. But like all human beings I can't make this happen by force of will... I need others. I need friends, companions, wise teachers who know the struggle and who can be trusted to remind me what I'm doing here. I need others...to make my life into a source of redemption, wisdom, friendship, and hope.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“Storytelling is the most intimate form of communication. It's a way of inviting the listener into what we have known, what we have suffered, what we have overcome. When we listen well to another story, it blooms within the body, creating an intimate connection between teller and listener. The heart races, the eyes fill with tears, the belly shakes with laughter. When we share something we have lived, a joy or suffering from our own lives, the listener is invited into our very being: to see what we have seen, hear what we have heard, touch and feel what we have known. In this way, storytelling is a sacred transaction. The stories of our lives are an offering, a kind of confession, an intimate revelation, and when they are received, we find the story has become a tether, binding us to one another.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“Speaking our stories can liberate us individually and collectively. At times transforming residents into neighbors, enemies into friends, and towns into communities.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“All human divisions, both within and between us, can begin to be healed through listening and sharing stories”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“There is a sacred Welsh word. A word, the Welsh tell me, that doesn't quite translate into English. The word is hiraeth. A wise friend from that land once said that the word refers to a particular kind of longing. "What kind of longing?" I asked. He paused, trying to find the words. "A longing for a place or time that the soul once knew.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“How do we bring people together?” the interviewer asked. His answer? “More picnics.” You come together. You share food. You kick a ball around. You sit and talk with your neighbors, sharing food and story and life. Peace by picnic.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“Every act of love brings hope. Every act of love ushers the new world into the present. Every act of love bridges alienation, brings comfort to our fears, makes space for hope. We need stories to help us recall the things we've all forgotten: That we are intimately interrelated. That our home is in one another. That peace is found within one another.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“If humanity is to survive and flourish, we need to do the slow work of congregating and exchanging stories and lessons from what we have lived. We need to nurture our capacities to listen well and speak honestly. If we are to recover the angels of our better nature, we have to move at soul speeds....We have to pay attention to who is talking and who is listening. We have to notice who is there and who is missing. We have to go out and coax those who have been excluded from the conversation to share what they know to be true.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“Arundhati Roy shared how the coronavirus pandemic has lifted up the choice humanity faces in crafting a new story by saying...What is this thing that has happened to us? It has brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. It offered us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced human beings to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred...our dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“We are mysteries unto ourselves. Our lives come to us in random moments...Listen to the stories you tell others. The stories you repeat. The stories you want told at the end of your life. What does the story want from the listeners? What is it you need others to understand?”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

“The transformation occurs in the space between one heart and another. To be heard by someone who is present, open, and caring is to be led into freedom.”
― Mark Yaconelli, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us