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The Story is in the Telling:
Narratives entail more than Spinning a Good Yarn
A Review Essay by Robert Béla Wilhelm,
Storytelling approaches to church ministries continue to be popular, as can be seen in the materials of these four books. They reveal much about the strengths and weakness of narrative theology today, and raise questions about the current popularity of sacred storytelling approaches in catechesis, homiletics, and spiritual direction.
William Bausch’s The Yellow Brick Road is the most challenging and rewarding of the four. Bausch is, of course, the old master, having consistently written some of the best books in the field. Yellow Brick Road exhibits the best aspects of contemporary narrative theology.
The book is artistically unified, drawing its themes and images from the classic American literary story of The Wizard of Oz. Bausch has chosen wisely, for the Oz story is rich in literary characters: Glinda the Witch, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, Elmira Gulch, Uncle Henry, and Auntie Em, to name just a few. In choosing L. Frank Baum’s classic book, Bausch has also chosen one of the most beloved tellings of the hero’s story. Mythologist Joseph Campbell calls the hero’s journey the Monomyth, or “The One Story,” meaning that at the heart of all stories is the quest of the hero or heroine. The Monomyth is the most compelling genre in the art of storytelling, for it takes the reader (or listener) on a wonder-filled journey through the landscape of the imagination and the geography of the soul.
Bausch moves easily between the stories themselves and his reflections on the spiritual journey. Each character introduces evocative themes that are identified in the chapter titles: “Signposts,” “Forgetfulness,” “The Elusive God,” “Capital Sins,” “Priorities,” etc. Bausch demonstrates the craft of the sacred storyteller by skillfully connecting images with themes, and by weaving these into the storyline of the Wizard of Oz.
Bausch connects a broad and inclusive collection of stories, with reflections and insights drawn to articulate a narrative spirituality. His consumate skill in pulling together dozens upon dozens of tales and reflections in an integrated manner is the mark of a master teller. Roger Schank (in his Tell Me A Story: A New Look at Real and Artificial Memory} concludes that only the master teller is able to intelligently draw on a massively indexed memory in order to tell the right tale to the right person at the right time. Bausch’s achievement is in utilizing his rich treasure trove of stories and reflections to tell profound truths.
The next book, Loretta Girzaitis’ Raised to the Light, Stories of Hope and Transformation, is a very different kind of project. Her organizing principle are the verses from Ecclesiates 3:1-8 celebrating “a time for every purpose under Heaven.” Some of the twenty-one themes are Suffering, Forgiving, Justice, Acceptance, Seeking, Work, Dying, etc. But rather than start a section with a story, Girzaitis opens with a reflection which unfortunately tells us what themes and ideas to look for in the story that follows. The tale itself is followed by what is typographically set as “poetry”, but which, in fact, is simply more ideas masked as poems.
The tales themselves are mostly moralizing or sentimental stories. In her preface, Girzaitis opens with “These are not fairy tales or legends, for each story is true.” (p. 11) Her statement betrays a serious misunderstanding of the relationship of truth, values, and facts that are at the heart of narrative theology.
The third book, Susan Shaw’s Storytelling in Religious Education, is the only book reviewed here that is not primarily a collection of stories. Instead, it is an encyclopedic scholarly study of the place of storytelling in religious education. Though Shaw’s personal stories appear occasionally, her emphasis is in developing a rationale for storytelling along the pedagogical lines of her seasoned mentor and editor, James Michael Lee.
Shaw’s book breaks no new ground. She documents trends, techniques, and research from many disciplines, but others have already explored those territories in recent years. Indeed, Shaw attempts to cover too much ground: Freudian and Jungian psychology, literary criticism, developmental psychology, storytelling techniques, and many other areas. Shaw accepts generalizations and truisms from her sources. For example, “If myths are stories that establish the world, parables are stories that subvert it.” (p. 162) This truism has been carelessly passed along from one theological writer to another over the past generation. Master storytellers create muti-layered works wherein myth and parable, as well as allegory and folktale, both establish and subvert worlds simultaneously in their very telling.
The final book, John Shea’s Elijah at the Wedding Feast and Other Tales, Stories of the Human Spirit, returns us to presence of another master teller and narrative theologian. Though the book is short on pages and includes too many of Shea’s stories from past publications, it is still a delight. Shea has the wisdom to begin with a story, the courage to follow the telling with another story which serves as a commentary, and then to explore the richness of the juxtaposed tales afterwards. His method can broadly be called midrashic and his style suggests the rabbinic masters. “The Shoelace” (pp. 133-140) is perhaps the best illustration of his skill at storyweaving and soulmaking in this book.
In his introduction Shea pointedly writes: “I do not know which stories will do what. I cannot predict responses. These stories seek to invoke the human spirit, and spirit cannot be predetermined. Matching story with response leaves out surprise, and surprise is the calling card of spirit.” (p. 1) And so Shea plays the magician with his storytelling. He claims little. Then he disarms us with the profundity of the tale, and with his rich, yet subtle, commentary that follows.
And what do these books say about the status of sacred storytelling and narrative theology today? In surveying the contemporary scene, Shaw’s work reveals that no major theoretician of narrative theology, and no major practioner of storytelling catechesis, has appeared in our generation. Approaches appearing during the past twenty years have lacked depth and rigorous methodologies.
Girzaitis’ work reminds us that too much contemporary sacred storytelling is conceptual rather than imaginative. Stories are simply used, again and again, as “illustrations” to promote approved feelings, abstract theological ideas, or current socio-political ideologies.
Theory and practice are lacking. The result is that homilists and catechists are periodically attracted to new approaches to sacred storytelling. But they readily abandon them following early disappointments in both the theory and the practice. They are like Dorothy and her company when they witness Toto pull pack the curtain that hides the face of the charlatan Wizard of Oz. In the end, those in ministry become disillusioned, convinced that theories of narrative theology are shallow, and practical skills for ministerial storytelling insubstantial.
On the other hand, William Bausch and John Shea give witness to a deep truth about this elusive field. Their work over the past twenty years has revealed that the practice of narrative theology is a spiritual discipline necessarily rooted in a traditional craft. Their storytelling reflects the practice of a traditional craft, where quality work, discipline, and a love of the materials, all come together in the heart of the teller.
What makes Bausch’s The Yellow Brick Road or Shea’s Elijah at the Wedding Feast so powerful are not the stories, nor the reflections, found in those books. (Though, the books are good enough themselves.) Rather, we discover what master crafters can do with their art when they work in the service of God. And then we know that we ourselves can, with grace and discipline, do the same in our telling. And in our listening, as well.
In the end, the Bauschs and Sheas become for us what the Good Witch Glinda became for Dorothy at the end of the book. The master tellers reveal to us that we always had the power in ourselves to take the journey back to the “Home” of our hearts and souls. We have the ability to narrate theologically. We have already taken the journey down the yellow brick road as we have Told and Listened to The Story, again and again.
copyright©2000 Robert Béla Wilhelm
Robert Béla Wilhelm, Th.D.
Director, The School of Sacred Storytelling, Inc.
Hagerstown, Maryland and Jemez Springs, New Mexico
Excerpted from The Living Light Spring 2000 Copyright © 2000 United States Catholic Conference, Inc., Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. To subscribe to The Living Light, a quarterly journal of catechesis, religious, education, and pastoral ministry, please call 800-235-8722.
Copyright©1999 Robert Bela Wilhelm
ORDER INFORMATION
Storytelling in Religious Education. Susan M. Shaw. (Birmingham, Alabama: Religious Education Press, 1999) 410 pp. $26.95.
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