Some time earlier we had a workshop on story telling. It appeared to me at the time that I was perhaps the most curmudgeonly attendant there or maybe the oldest and needed something. I got it! The workshop was conducted by a visiting EpiscopaL priest who is a professional story teller. Her stories were allegorical but not scripturally based that day. However, the sort of story telling that scripture utilizes is often allegorical stories that tell us something about ourselves, if we identify with the stories and the characters within them. They can be creative and constructive.
Half of the people at the workshop were Anglicans and half were not church people but were interested in this kind of story telling. The priest may have avoided scriptural tales in view of the nature of the participants. The act of relating to one another through listening to allegorical tales, reacting to the characters in the stories in the way one does, and vicariously to one another as a result, provides an interesting and valuable insight about how one thinks about oneself and the tangible and intangible reality you think you know, or thought you knew.
Whether fable or parable, allegory or metaphor, we can delve into a head space for ourselves or learn from others. Of course, whether we were church goers or not, there was no discernible difference in the responses at all, in our workshop.
And yet when I look at our liturgy in church on any Sunday, the readings of scripture, the hymns, the psalms sung, even the prayers, have significant elements of allegory. What does that allow in respect to interpretation? A respect of the diversity among us. It allows our God-given right to be ourselves in all things of the spirit and to follow where it will in charity and harmony even for the most curmudgeonly.
Half of the people at the workshop were Anglicans and half were not church people but were interested in this kind of story telling. The priest may have avoided scriptural tales in view of the nature of the participants. The act of relating to one another through listening to allegorical tales, reacting to the characters in the stories in the way one does, and vicariously to one another as a result, provides an interesting and valuable insight about how one thinks about oneself and the tangible and intangible reality you think you know, or thought you knew.
Whether fable or parable, allegory or metaphor, we can delve into a head space for ourselves or learn from others. Of course, whether we were church goers or not, there was no discernible difference in the responses at all, in our workshop.
And yet when I look at our liturgy in church on any Sunday, the readings of scripture, the hymns, the psalms sung, even the prayers, have significant elements of allegory. What does that allow in respect to interpretation? A respect of the diversity among us. It allows our God-given right to be ourselves in all things of the spirit and to follow where it will in charity and harmony even for the most curmudgeonly.
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