Between the Listening and the Telling
How Stories Can Save Us
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
"We need a teacher and a book such as this."--Anne Lamott, from the foreword
Stories tether us to what matters most: our families, our friends, our hearts, our planet, the wondrous mystery of life itself. Yet the stories we've been telling ourselves as a civilization are killing us: Fear is wisdom. Vanity is virtuous. Violence is peace. In the pages of Between the Listening and the Telling, storyteller, author, and activist Mark Yaconelli helps us find and craft the stories worth telling: of repair, and justice, and truth, and empathy--leading us into an enchanting meditation on the power of storytelling in our individual and collective lives.
Through his work with The Hearth, a storytelling nonprofit, Yaconelli has spent thousands of hours listening to people as they grieve loss, deepen friendships, strengthen families, shed light on injustice, and celebrate wonder. By borrowing practices from spiritual communities, such as silence, song, meals, and a moral imperative to serve the greater good, he helps us tap into the sacred power of storytelling. From personal meaning-making to school shootings, climate change, and immigration justice, listening to and telling stories helps us connect to our human longings and deep currents of hope.
With a foreword by Anne Lamott, Between the Listening and the Telling offers an alloy of story, commentary, and meditation. In an era of runaway loneliness, alienation, global crisis, and despair, sharing stories helps us make a home within ourselves and one another.
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"All human divisions... can begin to be healed through listening and sharing stories," writes Yaconelli (The Gift of Hard Things), the founder of a nonprofit that helps communities organize storytelling events, in this poignant meditation. Telling one's personal story can help with grieving, making sense of the past, and spotlighting injustice, Yaconelli posits, and the stories that follow, many from his nonprofit work, exemplify "how speaking... can liberate us individually and collectively." In one instance, an 18-year-old's powerful story about visiting her father in jail before he was deported to Mexico humanizes the danger of listening to "fear-based, one-sided" narratives. In another, a grieving community gathers a year after a school shooting to discuss how "those lost and wounded are loved"; such events have led to that community growing closer in the tragedy's wake, Yaconelli writes. The author also shares his own experience as a child, when he learned to "speak in compelling sentences and dramatic plotlines" to hold his father's attention and "garner his love." The vignettes are in turn heartbreaking, funny, and consistently well written. The result is a moving testament to the power of confession.
