Re-Tell the Whole Story

Friendly Reminder: Re-Tell the Whole Story

A biweekly reflection from the Quaker Leadership Center

By Andy Stanton-Henry

I’ve been talking a lot about stories lately. It was the theme of our last Quaker Leadership Conference and this will be the third Friendly Reminder about the topic. In my meeting, we’ve been journeying through the book of Acts and we are now starting a series on Jesus’ parables. Story-telling seemed to be Jesus’ favorite medium for illustrating and demonstrating the kingdom of God.

And now I see that Friends at the FGC Gathering are working with the theme of “Rooted in Story”!

There’s a lot of talk (from me and others) about stories these days. And for good reason. Read my last two blogs to recall that storytelling has been an essential skills for both survival and spiritual growth from the beginning of human history.

Still, maybe I am overdoing the whole “story” thing. Are you sick of it yet?

Like it or not, I think it’s worth at least one more Friendly Reminder because it’s not only important to tell stories; it’s important to re-tell stories.

It turns out that re-telling good stories is an important leadership skill. The retelling can be annoying but it can also be formative. I’ve come to believe that stories that aren’t re-told cannot re-new us. We are too distracted, too slow, too forgetful, and too expansive to receive the story in one telling/hearing.

There are several reasons that this repetition is useful for life and leadership.

Why do we re-tell and repeat stories?

1. Because good stories bear repeating. Some stories are worthy of a good re-telling or twelve. They contain enduring wisdom, a surprise invitation, or a poignant and timely challenge. We can’t help but say: “Hey Friend, tell us the one about…”

2. We live in an attentional economy. Like it or not, there is a battle for our attention. Large corporation are spending obscene amounts of money to keep our attention. They want to capture our attention and convert that energy into compulsive consumption. Quaker leaders have the challenge of inviting Friends to “spend” their attention on alternative values and visions. This means we will need to speak truths and tell stories over and over again. And in different settings and styles.

Leadership teacher Ken Blanchard said that a new idea needs to be communicated at least seven times, in seven different ways, before it is truly received by one’s constituency. Pastor William Willimon agrees: “Relentless, focused communication, continual repetition, and constant clarification are requisites to transformative leadership.”

3. We are slow learners. Our lives move quickly into duplicity so we need the threefold reminder of Thoreau: “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.” We get cynical and ungrateful so we need the Apostle Paul’s repetition: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again: rejoice!” There are Powers intent on suppressing liberating stories so we need Maya Angelous reminder there is “no great agony” than bearing “an untold story” inside us.

The people I respect the most – those who have been the most formative and influential in my life – had sayings and stories that they often repeated. Because they were retold and repeated, they are alive in my heart and mind. What stories or sayings do you repeat?

4. We are forgetful. Rarely do we move beyond fundamental truths and origin stories. And maybe it’s rare that we need a truly new message to guide us. Usually what we need is a “Friendly Reminder.” I’ve noticed a pattern in my relationship with God. I seek divine guidance for a “new problem.” After a time of wrestling under the Gracious Gaze, I hear a gentle query: “Haven’t we talked about this already?”

One of the tasks of leadership is being a steward of memory. We keep alive the memory of our organization, congregation, or ministry. This means we keep reminding our people about the whole stories we inherited from our fore-bearers. And we keep reminding them of our past dealings with the divine that led to consolation, confrontation, and vision.

We retell the stories until everyone has memorized and internalized the message. We repeat the wisdom sayings until Friends are rolling their eyes and finishing the sentences. In the process we are reminded of who we are and we are drawn into who we are called to become. Writer Sue Monk Kidd stated: “Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.”

5. New meaning arises with each telling. Sometimes we repeat stories for an altogether different reason. We retell in order to discover new meaning. The poet Mark Nepo explains: “When we repeat stories, it’s not because we are forgetful, but because there is too much meaning to digest in one expression. So we keep sharing the story that presses on our heart until we understand it.”

This is one way of understanding scripture and other stories from our spiritual tradition. We tell them over and over again because they are too big or too deep to understand in one telling. Or even one generation. We keep telling the stories and listening to the stories, knowing that none of us has the “whole story” but we are given the sacred invitation to find our piece of the story. Or, if I may be so bold, to find our part to play in the story God is telling.