A Story Told Is A Life Shaped

One of the first gifts we are given is our voice. It is with our voice that our individual place in the history of humanity is understood by others and hopefully, by our selves. With the voice we're given, we forge an identity that becomes our very sense of what we're going to bring to life over the years we walk across this planet. As children, we are often exposed to the ways others live, the environments of our world, and the people who are our family and our neighbors. It is in a story we find others, we find life, and maybe most important, we find what we connect to.

Growing up, I heard stories that were illustrated by people acting out the actions that tell something about life and as I fell asleep while they were being read by the tender baritone that my dad was given to share with others. During this time, I connected to music that had lyrics formed into stories told as they were sung to a guitar strumming and a banjo twanging. It was the music that had its roots in the soil of gardens, its range across the heart of humanity's experience as the sun rose and set, and that found me connecting to others that are part of life with me.

In a story, we can grow with characters, hear the rhythm that pulses daily in our hearts, recognize our dilemmas and struggles, and continue to ask questions that lead to discovery. We tell stories to children so they can expand the images they have of life in their minds. Imaginations are formed through what we tell them through expressive, vivid, imagery that broaden a perspective and permit a new understanding to form and later be shared to the collective experience that is humanity.

Once a story ends, our place that we put in it, doesn't have to. A part of the story can light a flame or plant a bulb that we can kindle or nurture until it becomes a deep inspiration. We can sometimes only see other parts of life through story. In words spoken we can hear a story in harmony with illustration or in the rhythm that connects our lives to others.  The stories in our hearts from families, friends, other cultures, give meaning and color to the very purpose of life. Their essence touch our soul, reach our minds, and give depth to what we reach for when we sing together to unite as one people in a shared, similar experience, or awareness of what we can do to share life and a light through for each other.

In the story, we see the journey becoming the pages we illustrate. How we use our voice allows us to tell our story as we travel together. We need not tell the whole story of our lives. We can tell the parts that make us who we are, where we are, as we become alive as we relate and understand in new ways in new light whether it's firelight, flashlight, fluorescent light, sunlight, moonlight, or candle light. This is the light of a story, no matter how dark, that we begin to speak out of as our voice becomes part of our stories.

A story can be our bridge to the meaning of our lives built from imagination,
connection to reality, and new understanding.