Notes from Day Two of the Festival of Faith and Writing

It occurs to me that what we're all really doing here is telling stories and listening to stories. I went to six different sessions today and listened to eight different writers talk about faith and writing and art and life, but really what we all were doing was telling and listening to stories. Then, in between sessions, I chatted with fellow conference-goers, and we told and listened to each others' stories.

Yesterday, one of the writers said that it's sometimes annoying that Jesus spoke in stories, because it would be nice if he would have just made his meaning a little more clear. In some way, that's a tantalizing thought, but I find myself becoming re-convinced and re-energized about the power and utility of stories.

For one thing, I love the way stories can have different meaning for different people, all of which can be true simultaneously.

Here's an example I heard today: Deborah Heiligman (The Boy Who Loved Math, Charles and Emma) read this story from a book by Martin Buber. She concluded by saying that we can do all sorts of things, travel everywhere, without ever realizing that all along, our treasure has been right below our feet. And yet, for me, the story was about being willing to follow wherever it seems like God is leading to find out the truth about where your treasure is. After all, it's not like the Rabbi in the story would ever have just randomly dug up the area under his stove, unless he'd taken the journey.

Stories have always been the way we all get at our truth--and I'm not just saying that because I've been hanging out with readers and writers all day. You hear a friend's story about a difficulty she's having, and you tell a story about a time you felt that way. Maybe you mention what you learned, or maybe you just sit together, knowing the feeling together. Then later, if a friend asks you what's new, or how you're doing, you might tell the story of that story-telling.

It's funny then, that as writers, we so completely resist actually telling the story. We want to tell about it, say what it means, when really we should just be getting out of the way, and letting the story do its thing. The best writing happens when we allow the story to just exist on its own, told as well as we can tell it. This involves a lot of faith--regardless of religious persuasion--because we can't control the story once it's out there. We must have faith in the story to convey truth, and we have to have faith in readers to pay close enough attention to discover that truth. Then we have to have faith that even if the truth that a reader discovers is not the truth that we intended them to find, the story is big enough to hold them both.