STORIES INVITE US to get inside other people’s heads and hearts. To walk in their shoes. More importantly to figure out which shoes fit us best. Stories entertain while at the same time invite us to perceive the world from outside ourselves. The best fiction doesn’t so much offer answers as rightly frame questions.
The great American philosopher Groucho Marx once observed, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” But it was never too dark for me to read when I was a kid as long as I had my trusty flashlight. Many a night, long after lights out had been decreed for the last time, I lay under the covers with flashlight and book, sweltering in the Louisiana humidity unable or unwilling to remove myself from the story world of Edgar Rice Burroughs, or Jack London, or my best friends, the Hardy Boys. I had discovered the power of story.
Jeff Goins, in his article, “Why I Believe in the Power of Story”, observed:
Jesus understood the power of story as illustrated in the numerous parables recorded in the New Testament. Perhaps one of the most remembered of those is recorded in Luke chapter 10 when He told a story to answer a question. That exchange between Jesus and a lawyer went something like this:
The story of the man robbed and left for dead contains all the elements of a powerful story mentioned by Goins. It is indeed a story populated with characters that all of that day could relate to in one or another. It is a messy story, leaving hearers to wonder why a man on the fringe like a Samaritan would take the heroic lead while more likely characters like priests fade from sight quickly only to remembered as callous villains. And it is a story with ultimate momentum. It demands a gut reaction. It demands a response.
A good story in print (or in digital format) holds more power than other medium. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), notes that a novel or short story, “is a particularly useful simulation because negotiating the social world effectively is extremely tricky, requiring us to weigh up myriad interacting instances of cause and effect. Just as computer simulations can help us get to grips with complex problems such as flying a plane or forecasting the weather, so novels, stories and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life.” An article in the New York Times on Neuroscience and Fiction
“Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings … Individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective”.
In other words, stories invite us to get inside other people’s heads and hearts. To walk in their shoes. More importantly to figure out which shoes seem to fit us best. Stories entertain while at the same time invite us to perceive the world from outside ourselves. The best fiction doesn’t so much offer answers as rightly frame questions.
Think about it; Jesus started out with the answer. Then He told a story that invited His listeners to look at themselves from a different angle and ask the right questions for the answer He had already offered.
That is the power of story and more importantly of a story well told. Couple that with the One telling the story and that lawyer didn’t have a chance.
". . . so novels, stories and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life.” Or not. ;) Or at least can illustrate how woefully inadept at all of it we are.
Well done, Tim.
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