Nov 2nd, 2021: The Power of Stories
"Those who tell stories, rule the society"
(Plato)
This saying has become true as we watch how the world has been dealing with the pandemic. How people respond to it depends on what narrative they have chosen to believe. Somehow they form their convictions according to the one they choose to believe.
We are not coherent in our ways of managing the pandemic because we have more than one narrative. The stories change according to their audience. The audience that has more capability of retelling their stories will be the one that rules the world.
Even though I might not agree with some folks in a small town in Southern Alberta about their rejection of vaccination, I can still appreciate that they made their choice based on the accounts of their history. It is a history of being abused, manipulated, and threatened by their authority. They are stories about religious persecution and cultural termination from the Russian Communist Government towards Christian communities. Their stories tell them that they saw this play before and refused to be an applauding audience.
All of us need to have a narrative about our choices and learn to respect others for theirs. The challenge for us is that even medical folks have different stories about this pandemic. It is like children listen to two different accounts of how their parents met and fell in love. One says that she had to marry him as a debt payment to the husband's family. The other says that their parents arranged the marriage when they were young. I leave it up to you to work this story out in the context of the pandemic. That is the beauty of a parable. By the way, neither story starts with their love for one another.
Let us end with a parable that Jesus taught. Remember that we will impact our society immensely if we know how to tell these parables.
Matthew 13: 31-32 (The parable of the mustard seed)
"He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.""
