We are a storytelling people. Our Sunday lessons are as often built around a scriptural episode as around an abstract principle. Our General Conference talks and magazine articles are brightened by stories. Our family reunions are celebrations of family stories. We want stories from our returning missionaries, not exhortations on repentance and baptism. This trait goes back to the beginning: as early as the 1850s, if not before, our sermons retold our earliest history as a way of solidifying us as a people and establishing our credentials as heirs to the prophetic tradition.<\/p>\n
This creates an enormous need for stories, especially those that illustrate gospel principles. We surpass all other \u00e2\u20ac\u0153people of the book\u00e2\u20ac? in the richness of our scriptures as a source for stories; we have a dramatic two-hundred-year LDS history from which to draw; we have a worldwide congregation from which to mine modern personal experiences. We can draw on secular history and literature.<\/p>\n
So, why is it that we so often fall back on the same relatively limited repertoire? You know what I mean. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re listening to a speaker, in your ward, in your stake, at Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Conference, at General Conference, and you hear the first few words of a too-familiar story, and you aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure whether that deep rumbling you hear is the sound of your own groans or the melodramatic tones of an imaginary organ warning you that the villain is about to strike.<\/p>\n
For me, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the story of Toscanini and the Wyoming sheepherder. You know the one \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I know<\/em> you know it: Wyoming sheepherder writes to Arturo Toscanini, telling him that his only consolations are a violin now badly out of tune, and a transistor radio with a dying battery over which he listens to Toscanini\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s broadcasts. If Toscanini\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s orchestra will sound a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153C\u00e2\u20ac? during the next concert, Wyoming sheepherder will tune his violin and have music to keep him company once his radio battery dies. Toscanini\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s orchestra sounds their perfect \u00e2\u20ac\u0153C\u00e2\u20ac?, Wyoming sheepherder presumably tunes his violin, and the speaker goes on to explain the moral of the story. <\/p>\n Only I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard the story so many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, man\u00e2\u20ac\u201c er, so many times, that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tuned out by now and never can quite remember what life-affirming lesson I am supposed to draw.<\/p>\n There are multiple reasons for repeating worn-out stories, ranging from the worst excuse (too lazy to prepare far enough in advance to find a new story) to the most charitable (the stories are repeated precisely because they are so dramatic and make the point so well). Perhaps one of the motivations for the “Teachings for Our Times” lessons was an attempt to draw on fresh material; these are, however, primarily expository rather than narrative.<\/p>\n Still, I have a fantasy about taking any church lesson manual that draws on episodes from Mormon history and replacing all the tired, over-exposed tales of a handful of faithful-but-too-well-known pioneers with fresh new ones that make exactly the same point. That is one potential use for the women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stories I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been posting here; obviously, women aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the only ones with suitable stories. Everybody has one \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we just have to find them.<\/p>\n PLEASE NOTE: Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not turn comments into a roll-call of bad stories or bad lessons. I would like to hear your ideas about storytelling in the church, and what kinds of stories you would like to hear, and especially what you might be doing to preserve the stories of your own life and family. DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T TRY TO OUT-DO EACH OTHER BY REPEATING YOUR MOST-HATED STORIES!! <\/strong> That was my prerogative as author of this post \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I do not extend the privilege to you. ;-)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We are a storytelling people. Our Sunday lessons are as often built around a scriptural episode as around an abstract principle. Our General Conference talks and magazine articles are brightened by stories. Our family reunions are celebrations of family stories. We want stories from our returning missionaries, not exhortations on repentance and baptism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}