Only A Story

It was "only a story"

   about light and darkness

    water and dry land

     seeds and fruit

       fish and birds and beasts.

God made it all up.

  Such things didn't really exist.

    But in the telling

      They came to life:

         "LET THERE BE LIGHT"---

            and the light appeared.

Then God imagined another creature

Into existence.

The creature couldn't

  swim like the fish

    or fly like the birds

      or run like the beasts.

All the creature could do

  was tell stories.

    Made-up stories:

      "IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT..."

      "ONCE THERE WAS A MAN 

             WHO HAD TWO SONS"     

      "CALL ME ISHMAEL..."

      "IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES;

            IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES..."

     "ONCE THERE WAS,

           AND ONCE THERE WAS NOT..."

They were "only stories"

  But in the telling

    they came to life.

      And new worlds were created.

                                  (a poem by Doug Bland)

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Just as the world was created when God told the first story ("Let there be light!"); so, the world is sustained (or destroyed) by the stories we tell today. 

Last year, just before Earth Day, we gathered for a storytelling concert that we called "H2OLY WATER STORIES."  The concert was part of an environmental conference sponsored by the Earth Care Commission of the Arizona Ecumenical Council called "H2Oly Water: Source of Life." 

H2Oly Water Storytellers

  Doug Bland, MC & Storyteller

Liz Warren, Celtic Teller, "The Damsels of the Wells"

  Jagdish Dave', Hindu Teller, "The Descent of the Ganga--the Holy River"

  
       "Wash and Be Healed:  Naaman, the Leper"