The photo above on this blog post is a screen catch from a CNN post where “an unidentified woman was captured on video navigating through wildfire flames toward firefighters in Orange County, California.”
The unnamed woman symbolizes a story. 1 Whether her life story is grand or mundane does not matter. The point is her story will continue to live on.
But what of those stories that lie hidden in the past? Do those stories die? Since I’ve been reading alot about the book of Ruth, I’ve discovered that how we tell a story, retell a story, or don’t even care about a story, is important. So, this post is a reflection on the concept of story-telling.
Do Stories Ever Die? If so, why?
Some stories—like vegetable peels and eggshells, having offered up their life-giving potentials to their consumers—are tossed into the compost heap where they remain to be repurposed as life-giving humus for other stories. 2
Some stories are euthanized, like a maimed and injured animal given a good-death to put it out of its misery—no longer of value to its owner.
But some stories are slain and then buried. Its life snuffed out. Its words strangled. Its message suffocated beneath the hands of the powerful clamped tightly over its mouth. Its limp and lifeless body, languishing from lack of oxygen, is buried alive.
Dead and forgotten, the story no longer poses a threat to the status quo of domineering systems.
Rising from the Fire
Buried stories are like a seed—possessing a wealth of dormant potential–sleeping in the earth, waiting for the precise moment in time when it may burst forth from the dry, cracked ground.
Suddenly, when we least expect it—after thinking what happened in the past would remain in the past—a rupture of seismic proportions beneath the earth’s surface—hidden and imperceptible to the human eye—causes a fissure in the seed’s protective outer coat, empowering it to break forth for all to see.
The story, long thought dead and gone, is catapulted from the deep, dark soil. With its first gulp of oxygen and breath filling in its lungs, the story rises. And like a small spark, it ignites a cleansing fire that spreads and consumes those who buried the story decades, centuries, and millenniums before.
A More Complete Story
I purchased this sweet little card months ago from a store in Cozad, Nebraska. The sentiment caught my attention and reminded me that my own story may be understood and told differently in light of God’s work in my life.
It sets on my desk as a reminder to give voice to the stories of women in the past and present, to let them rise out of the fiery crucible from whence they were shaped, to tell them more completely. Their voices cry out from the grave and long to be resurrected.