Page 33 - Priorities #50 2011-June/July

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the story and reread it to us. Without editorializing, using only his mischievous eyes and the nuances of his voice, he brought the story alive in a completely different way.
Imagine our surprise when we realized that The Giving Tree was not necessarily a sweet story. The boy could as easily be seen as narcissistic and exploitive; the tree knew how to give, but the boy only took.
The same story that had greatly moved the class was now responsible for catalyzing emotions of outrage and disbelief. Some of us were angry for having
our idealized vision of the boy
and the tree shattered; some
of us were incensed by the
social message of selfishness
and the abuse of nature implied by the story.
Professor Yglesias was not making a political comment. Nor was he trying to espouse postmodern assertions of relativism. He was simply giving us a wake-up call, and he was activating our imaginations. He was guiding us to actively connect to the story, and he was asking us to challenge our habitual response to a story we had heard many times. We were being led to discover the heart of what stories are all about. My life has not been the same since that day.
Professor Luis Yglesias introduced me to the power of imagination. He poured a foundation of reflection fashioned out of stories, narratives, sense giving and sense making. I had been looking for a framework for examining how we connect to ourselves and others. Today, I feel blessed to have had this initial intellectual inquiry deepened, by realizing this is yet another vehicle of the Holy Spirit.
Stories are fundamental to the way we communicate and learn. They are the most efficient way of storing, retrieving, and conveying information. Since story hearing requires active participation by the listener, stories are the most profoundly social form of human interaction and communication.
SMB: What is it about stories that make them an effective means of bridging differences in people?
TLG: We seldom know the “real story” behind someone’s feelings, beliefs, or actions. Worse yet, we do not make the effort to discover their story. Convinced of our opinions we prefer to keep our mental world neat and orderly by staying focused on our perspective rather than entertaining another point of view. While these natural proclivities of our mind are assets intended by evolution to equip
our species with the ability to act independently and decisively, they are also liabilities when it comes to
relationships. When we actively listen to other people’s stories we do not need to abandon our ideas; instead we can enter a new frame of reference by reconstituting the
story being shared with us in our minds and hearts. Stories allow us to move in and out of a different frame of references. We are in essence, “standing in someone else’s shoes.”
Hearing someone else’s story may not change our perspective but it opens up dialogue and increases the chance of a mutually satisfying resolution. While we may not become expert listeners overnight, stories help us understand another’s perspective because they require active listening. Stories catapult our imaginations into new directions. Many of our habitual ways of looking at things can be altered by a stories’ capacity to engage us. Our connection to others and our understanding of their perspectives is deepened by stories’ ability to inform us in ways that words by themselves cannot do.
As we listen to each other’s stories it becomes possible to negotiate differences. More often than not, our conflicts are a function of not hearing and understanding one another. Spontaneous solutions and resolutions arise when we enter someone else’s frame of reference. Sharing our stories generates vivid pictures for others because when we listen actively we bring our experiences to their telling. Therefore, a bridge of understanding is constructed between two or more people.
Caption Hearing someone else’s story may not change our perspective but it opens up dialogue and increases the
chance of a mutually satisfying resolution.