Blog 36 – 5.26.15

Each of us has a story to tell. Most of us have many. One of the things I enjoy most about my traveling life is the opportunity to meet many and varied people and to learn their stories. I used to tell my son when he was young to value everyone because everyone we meet knows something we do not. One can learn a great deal from a man just by listening to his or her story.

I truly believe that little Bible verse that I site often, “God is all in all.” That being said I think all ours stories are His Story. There are many interesting quotes about history. I list but a few of the more familiar ones:

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

The winners get to write history.

We have a tendency to make ourselves the hero in our story.

A deeper examination of each of the above reveals several insights. First as far as winners getting to write history, often the prevailing view of history is from the perspective of the winners. But those who lost the battle or the war also have a story to tell. An honest look at history from several witnesses not just the winners sometimes makes for a clearer picture. It was quite an eye opener for me when I first read the book, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, and saw the Native American view of events. Some would sarcastically call such a book “revisionist history” but another view point is just that. Often the standard history is little more than a pretty picture painted to try to cover up the actual events and make the winners look pure and heroic and the losers evil and monstrous. In war evil and monstrous acts are committed on both sides and as well heroic and noble. Some stories do not have a happy ending but optimist that I am I believe the story goes on.

My dad was a great story teller. He grew up poor in the South during the depression before TV. Most of his boyhood evenings were spent hearing his dad or some other family member or friend spin an entertaining tale. You could tell dad a great story and next time you saw him he’d be telling it only it had happened to him. I called him on it once and he just smiled and said he thought stories sounded better when told in first person. I love my dad and confess that I did not always appreciate his long stories especially the ones I had heard umpteen times. What I wouldn’t give to hear him telling one now. History, His Story, our story goes on and on.

Your Fellow Traveler and Storyteller,
David White