English Avenue

Telling stories has long been recognized as an important part of healing, self-knowledge, and personal and spiritual vehicle for connecting us to other people and to God. . . . it is a means for understanding ourselves and our place in the world.

     We conceive of our lives as a web of stories - a historical novel or a mini-series in the making.. . . . We tell stories in order to live. We use stories to construct meaning and communicate ourselves to another. Stories help us organize and make sense of the experiences of a life.

     Stories are mighty, however, not only because we shape our lives through them but also because they have the power to unsettle the lives we have comfortably shaped by them. . . . Weaving together the human and the divine enables us to hear our own stories retold with clarity and new possibilities; our lives are transformed in the telling.

     Stories have the potential to build authentic communities of shared meaning and values.