Our
Stories
“The
latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast,
stand this afternoon on the corner of Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue,
waiting for the traffic light to change.”
Joseph
Campbell (as recorded in Soul Therapy by Thomas Moore, p.17; Harper One, 2021)
As
Thomas Moore says in his new book, Soul Therapy, there are no new
stories, only new incarnations of old ones. We all have stories—many of them.
Comedies, tragedies, romances, disasters, deaths, intrigue, mystery, all rolled
into one lifetime. These stories seem new and raw and sometimes shameful, but the
truth is, everyone has some version of them. And most of us want to tell our
stories to someone we can trust to honor them.
To be
sure, we only want to tell the triumphant ones—the ones in which we overcome
the obstacles and win the game, or the girl, or save the damsel in distress—and
there’s a damsel in distress in every one of us. Stories are all that remains
of whatever portion of our life is in the past, and the tales we tell ourselves
about ourselves, whether they are factual or not, say a great deal more about
who we are than we think. They incorporate how we feel, how we behave, how we
value ourselves and others. And most of all, they show how we perceive ourselves
and our lives. Our stories are the lens through which we show our personal
worldview.
As in
the myths of every culture, there are orphans, victims, heroes, witches, warriors,
wise old men and women, ugly stepmothers, kindly wizards, and magical children
in our stories. And dragons. Oh, yes, lots of dragons. We may think our life
has been ordinary—and it has been—not because we are particularly boring, but
because we all have versions of the same stories. Some of us have done more, traveled
more, acquainted more people, risen higher. Others of us have been crushed
beneath the weight that life can unload. Most of us have experienced all of that
at different points in our lives. And along the way, we have encountered
extraordinary people and lived through extraordinary experiences—whether we have
a corner office, work on a factory floor, or cut grass for a living. And all of it is part of our story—our ordinary, spectacular story.
Your story
is just as important as Cinderella’s, Kim Kardashian’s, Michael Jordon’s,
or mine. I hope you are telling your stories to people who love you. To safe
people who will enjoy hearing them, and who will tell their stories to you in
return. You will find more similarities than differences because, “What has
been will be again, what has been done will be done again, there is nothing new
under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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