HELLO!

I am not neither a biography or “detail” person, in that the information I crave is neither to do with the highs or lows of life (what I call the “successes” of obituaries or the “lows” of being in FRANK magazine) or the number of the exact number of laws in the Bible (613). Of course, there will one day be an obituary written about all of us, so some form of description that includes where we were born, where we went to school, where we worked, how many are in our immediate families, what degrees we earned…etc, this is important. And, I would be unnerved to think the pilot of my place, the engineer who designed the bridge I am driving over or the doctor who is operating on me, also didn’t care for details. BUT, when it comes to conversation and relationships, I find both topics uninspiring, not alone uninteresting. When I visit people in the hospital, and they are challenged by life threatening illness or life-changing illness, what keeps their head above water is not where they went to school, whether others think them a “success” or how many kilometers it is from their home to their cottage. No, what comes up in these conversations is unexpected relationships that turned into a bond that brings tears to their eyes, work (volunteer or paid) that pushed them to offer service they never imagined possible, and insights that emerged over a lifetime that they wish they understood years before. And most of these topics are framed in and around stories. Stories remain sturdy, when everything else around us crumbles, they help us explain who and why we are.

I like to offer this aha! moment when discussing the importance of stories. Kim and I were parking (or trying to) our car near suppertime around St. Andrew’s United Church (where I was working at the time). There was no where to park. I asked someone, after we parked on Shirley Street and walked) why “all the cars”? It turned out Stewart MacLean was offering his fictional stories at the Dalhousie Art Centre. I thought about that for a moment, when all of us have access to anything and everything on our computers, in our homes, why would people drive to this campus, go in circles trying to find a parking spot, pay $100, and then repeat the whole process all over again to get home, to hear stories, stories that are fictional? Why is the Bible filled with stories, why do people love the Bible stories but struggle with books that read like genealogies, or how-to manuals, or casualties of war reports? You know the answer. And yet…we continue to share information as if we don’t know this answer. Go figure…

Peace, Kevin