“STORIES ARE SACRED,” according to Leonard Sweet in his book, Soul Salsa.
“Storytelling is the most sacred of professions. Stories are what makes the soul healthy or ill, saved or damned. Prozac is really nothing more than a story drug that empties your mind of bad memories and allows the good life stories to take supremacy. . . . Stories are our lives’ greatest asset.”
Sweet goes on to describe how we can choose items from our homes and ceremonies in our lives that are rooted in personal stories to strengthen our spiritual lives, not unlike the Jewish mezuzah on doorposts. He suggests you choose items to sanctify your living space with meaningful stories.
One of his examples: “Every time I open my New English Bible, I invoke two prayers. First, a prayer of thanks for William Tyndale, the biblical scholar who gave his life so that you and I can do something we take for granted—read the Scriptures in our own language. Second, a prayer offering my life as a Third Testament to be deployed and distributed in any way God sees fit.”
I do something similar with my personal library. I surround myself with books when I write, and I sometimes run my hand along the spines of the books on my shelves in gratitude to the authors and publishers who made it possible for me to have this wonderful collections of instruction, and insight, and stories. Sometimes I’ll select a specific volume and, as I flip through its pages, think of the author, what he/she means to me, and say a prayer for them, thanking God for their influence in my life.
How about you? What objects in your household hold stories that give meaning to your life? Leave a comment. I’d like to hear about it.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE: The same gratitude Leonard Sweet expressed for Tyndale inspired me to write Beyond the Sacred Page, a story of smuggled Tyndale New Testaments into England, and how they impacted the lives of a middle-aged couple and the English nation. Similarly, Glimpses of Truth, tells the story of the everyday people who risked their lives to read the earlier Wycliffe English version of the Bible.
You can read more about these books here.
STRENGTH FOR THE QUEST
Because Life Is More Than A Journey