Once upon a time...

by the Revd Hannah Cartwright

My Grandfather was a black cab driver in London for 50years. He heard more than his fair share of other people’s mundane, exciting and frequently-exaggerated tales and he often quoted the famous line (ironically mis-attributed to American Humorist Mark Twain): ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story’.

With the rise of AI and deep-fakes, and the never-ending challenge of fact-checking one’s information, can a story ever truly be treated as innocuous escapism, or must we be constantly alert to its potential for subtle moral manipulation? And does the art of storytelling still have value in a society which trades in memes and sound bites for easy, out-of-context recognition amongst its cultural consumers?

I still remember the moment in my youth when I learned that the Bible wasn’t just to be treated as a ‘fact-finders-guide to faith’ and that it contained genres of writing I had never heard of before. That moment could have derailed me (suddenly feeling I had been lied to by Sunday School teachers everywhere about a literal seven-day creation event!). Instead, luckily, it sparked a greater curiosity to find the truth behind and within the well-worn pages of my ‘my first Bible stories’ book, and I began the project of personal religious deconstruction; a period which lasted several decades with some intensity.

I hoped, and did, discover truth again for myself within Scripture - as I learned more about ‘the Way, the truth and the life’ and, most significantly, I learned that Love had a name. But it was some years before I felt confident to share the story of my own faith with others. This changed for me only when I came to realise that the Scriptures we have received are not simply a moral prescription, but are an invitation to sit at the feet of God and hear how God has intentionally woven God’s story with the story of humanity; and how the encouraging, challenging and downright bizarre accounts within the pages of the Bible are often other people finding inspired yet faultering language to tell their own story of relationship with God too. 

Suddenly my own encouraging, challenging and (at times) apparently bizarre walk with God became simply a small but colourful thread woven into a rich and eternal tapestry of the greater story of God and Humanity. And, I hope, a part of the picture which might just, one day, help someone else come to see themselves and their life as a valued and essential part of that same picture too. 

Without stories, life has no ‘arc’ to it; no context or meta-narrative to help us make sense of the varied string of moments and experiences which make up our lives. So perhaps stories do still have a place in our lives, and in our Scriptures. Perhaps some may even manage to be simultaneously both good and true in the telling.