Stories

FEB. 7, 1982, 5:44 AM
FARM, FRONT OF FIRE

You know, o son, that there would be a teaching this morning, telling you more about stories and commenting in some ways on the study session last evening. Duane presented it in his way, and again I urge you as a learner: do not be critical of an approach as it is being presented, but, rather, get as much as you can from it. Criticism, later, may be helpful to you in a similar circumstance, or it could be helpful to the presenter. But do not rob yourself of value by letting criticism of the procedure reduce your consideration of the substance of the issue.

As I have told you repeatedly, the story is a marvelous means for learning. You made a good start on the development of stories to illustrate the spirit as a factor in health, but only a tiny start. If you would only give some concentration to this you could collect innumerable stories, and develop even more… from the concept material. You now know enough about life to take the ideas (yes, that is a good concept, even though you didn’t like it, initially, last evening) about spirit and translate them into stories.

You notice that I am pressing for two complementary uses of stories – deriving ideas, concepts, and morals from stories heard or read AND also translating or converting these more intellectual constructs back into stories. You did this initially in your first book, and you keep forgetting to take heed of yourself. I truly want you to consciously develop and use this means in your teaching and writing… and you know that I mean this… but you are not yet responding as you should. There are several reasons for Duane’s doing this series now, but one of them is the stimulus to you that I desire.

One value of the story is in the identification you can make with a human happening… the potential learning that can be of value in your own life functioning. There can be identification with a person, with a setting, with a decision situation, with other factors… but in some ways it can elicit “Yes, there I have been… or Yes, there go I”.

Another value comes when there is little or no direct identification of self, but where the story is a means of understanding another or others who clearly are different from you. It may be a different age, a different culture, different values, different goals. It is not you, and you may be glad that it is not. Still, the other is a brother who is ultimately a part of you… and you with him, or with her. As it was said, Treasure the story you do not understand, and return to the one with which you have no initial empathy.