What do you see?

The icon image you see by clicking on this link: what do you see? >> depicts the age-old conundrum … what do you see?

Two people face to face? Or a lampstand?

• Two people sharing stories? Two people listening to the other’s story? Connecting into each other’s language, body language, their lives, or their histories in dynamic, relational ways? … or …
• A static, brass-cold candlestick? (As useful as such things are as a recent human invention.)

When it comes to seeing yourself as a storyteller, a story listener, or neither, the choice is simple. Engage with the person you are listening to in a respectful, creative, and thoughtful way as possible. Or be as passive as a lump of brass. Too harsh? The truth is that most of us are somewhere in between most of the time. Both at once. Like the icon image.

Are you connecting?

To be fully ‘present’ in any given situation essentially means communicating your desire for a meaningful connection. This includes listening and really hearing with your ears, seeing with your eyes, and sensing in your spirit what is being communicated. It includes listening to Holy Spirit, who is already at work in the world and in the person’s life whose story is communicated before you.

Are you listening to Holy Spirit as well as the person in front of you? Do you desire a connection? Are you praying to be open to God hunches, inklings, ideas, or pictures coming up for you as you pray into this situation? This latter idea is gleaned from Rick Richardson’s book entitled, ‘Re-imagining Evagelism’. Well worth a read.

Storytelling and story listening, since time immemorial, is about connecting. It’s God’s call to you and me to be followers of Jesus, doing life in the power of Holy Spirit who is alive and working in and through us. This makes you a part of God’s Big Story, reflecting that Story in the way you listen to stories and in the way you share your story! Are you up for being a part of that?

Your comments

Because this is a learning community space, the task now is to critique the ideas &/or stories presented here.

• Use the comment space below to share your ideas, responses, questions, alternative points of view, or suggested improvements and reasoning.
• Share how you would use any of this appropriately in your context, with your skills, and in your style!
• Add below any of your own related experiences or similar examples of stories or ideas you have seen, heard, or tried.