Truthful Tribal Storytelling
A commentary by Randy Stiver
United Church of God pastor, Coos Bay, Eugene, and Roseburg, Oregon
"Writing, writing, writing, Daddy's sermon, sermon, sermon!" So
proclaimed my two-year-old-daughter sitting in a laundry basket scribbling
on a tablet. A university graduate now, she is most perceptive about
my work as a pastor.
Knowing what their parents do or have done for a living can't always
be expected of American children. Sue Shellenbarger, Work & Family columnist
for the Wall Street Journal, recently described her nine-year-old
son telling a friend that "Mommy types for a living."
Later she began clarifying through "work stories" so he understood
that she wrote. Her column was highlighting how a "continuing 10-year
University of Chicago study of 250 young adults shows that many teens
don't understand the career paths open to them or the steps needed to
travel the path of their choice." The point being that many parents
simply don't convey to their children what they do at work.
Take that tendency out further. From telling family work stories, let's
consider expanding to family history stories to telling the stories of
our extended family and ethnic clan to the telling of the history of
our nation and the world.
For years the U.S. educational system has been castigated, and not without
cause, for failing to effectively teach students basic history. But who
else hasn't lived up to their history-teaching expectations? You guessed
it—parents and the churches, too. After all, when you're talking
history stories of the world, the Bible is the textbook.
God in the Bible instructs us as parents to teach our children in detail
about His great moral ethic—i.e., His laws. He also requires us
to tell them the stories of the true history of man. Including, for instance,
the meaning of the memorial stones the ancient Israelites were to carry
out of the bottom of the Jordan River as they crossed into the Promised
Land shortly before Joshua fought the battle of Jericho (Deuteronomy
4:6-8; Joshua 4:4-7)
To teach our children the stories of history—parent, clan and
tribe—requires that the adult generation see clearly the value
of history itself. Often over the years I have asked my congregations
if they enjoyed studying history in school. Always the majority did not.
This seemed odd to me at first because I had several superb teachers
who helped me grow to love history. Then it dawned on me: There must
be very few good history teachers. No wonder we fail to grasp its significance
to the meaning of our lives!
Eminent historian and late, great British Prime Minister Sir Winston
Churchill pegged the purpose of history: "The farther backward you
can look, the farther forward you can see."
History's stories carry prophetic implications.
Knowing their family history gives children a sense of heritage and
direction for their futures. After she told him the stories of her writing
career, Sue Shellenbarger's son, in his early teens, now asks her how
he can also prepare for and find his own interesting and challenging
life's work.
Industrial wise man Max DuPree in his 1989 book Leadership Is an
Art describes the telling of the history of families, clans, nations
and even business institutions as "tribal storytelling."
"Every family, every college, every corporation, every institution
needs tribal storytellers," he wrote. "The penalty for failing
to listen is to lose one's history, one's historical context, one's binding
values."
Sharing values that bind sure beats the alternative—lives and
families coming unglued!
"Tribal storytellers, the tribe's elders, must insistently work
at the process of corporate renewal," Mr. Dupree wrote. "They
must preserve and revitalize the values of the tribe."
Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles are the family's "tribal" elders.
How good a tribal storyteller are you? How well do your children know
your personal and family history? How well do you know it? Turn off the
TV, shut down the computer, gather the children around and tell the stories
of your tribe.
And how well have you been taught the true tribal stories of the Bible?
Or even the true history, for instance, of the popular holidays of modern
Christianity? Along with Islam, Judaism and the other world religions,
traditional Christianity has not proven a particularly truthful tribal
storyteller.
The Bible is the record of the ultimate, divine, tribal storytelling.
Again, turn off the TV and computer, blow the dust off your Bible and
read for yourself the foundational stories of every tribe of mankind
in the world today. You will be surprised. |
