The Magic of Story

            I can recall only one birthday when my parents hired a magician. He was a member of my church and we used to dog sit for him, so really he was also a family friend. I don’t really remember much about the experience, but I remember there were flowers. And I remember thinking magic was real. 

            I don’t know when we lose that sense of real magic. Every summer when America’s Got Talent comes back on TV, I watch the magicians and try to google how they do their tricks. How could they possibly make that disappear? Could they really change that into that? And the ones whose tricks are wrapped up in a bow with mental gymnastics the likes of which I could never begin to understand (looking at you, Clairvoyants!), forget it. There are moments when I still believe magic is real and moments when I believe it’s just smoke and mirrors. And yet, I wonder sometimes if smoke and mirrors aren’t all bad.

            Neil Gaiman talks about this a little bit in the introduction of his book of short stories,Smoke and Mirrors. He writes, “Stories are, in one way or another, mirrors. We use them to explain to ourselves how the world works or how it doesn’t work. Like mirrors, stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in the darkness.” Stories are a kind of magic, but I believe they are real magic. I enjoy reading fantasy not because I hate the world in which I live, but because I love the idea that other worlds could exist. That pirates could sail on seas made of honey (see Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea) and young women knights with purple eyes could use magic to defeat evil wizards (see Tamora Pierce’s Alanna: Song of the Lioness Quartet). Stories are magic because they bind us together in ways that most other things don’t.

           

             As people who love and follow Jesus, the story that binds us together is of course really a series of stories we call the Bible. And whether you believe everything in the Bible is 100 percent true or not, they are stories that connect us. Imagine being a Christian and not believing in the hope of the resurrection we read about in the Easter story. Imagine showing up to Christmas Eve service and not hearing the story of Jesus’ birth. Stories connect us and they bring us through different seasons of the year and our lives. Sometimes rather than distracting us from the darkness, they give us a light to take into the darkness with us. 

            The light shined in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it(John 1:5). 

          

          I don’t know how magicians do their tricks, but I know storytellers are just a different kind of magician. Stories are a kind of magic. Jesus used the power of story to help people see things in new ways (we call them parables…the disciples called them head-scratchers). We can use the power of story, too. Stories have power, which is why we need stories from so many different places. If you only get your stories from one source, there’s a lot of unexplored territory and incomplete truths. Think about stories from history. Think just about the story of Thanksgiving and the story you learned in school vs. the details that make up the real story (go look up the Wampanoag tribe). Stories have great power, and with great power comes responsibility (says a character from another story). Check out the link at the end of this article to a TED talk about the power of story and the importance of getting more than one story.

         

           Stories are magic. I know this because every time I hear the words, “Once upon a time,” I lean in and my imagination demands to know more. I hope your year is filled with the kind of magic stories bring. As you read about sermons that are so long people fall out of windows (Acts 20) or women who fall in love with monks (Sue Monk Kidd’s Mermaid Chair), I hope the stories inspire and challenge you. I hope they help you dream and may our stories bring us all closer together.  


TED talk referenced: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story




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