Stories of Resilience, Resistance, and Hope
Inspired by the focus on stories and storytelling in the sermons at FMC during Eastertide, we decided to continue with the theme of Stories of Resilience, Resistance, and Hope for this issue of MennoExpressions.
FMC’s foray into storytelling revealed just how much power stories have to connect us across generations, experiences, and circumstances. In fact, "Stories are not just stories. They are the way we remember who we are. … Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving,” observes Madeleine L'Engle in The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth.
Another one of our favorite and powerful storytellers, J.R.R. Tolkien, illustrates this again and again in his sweeping story of resilience, resistance, and hope. While his epic tale about the struggle between good and evil leads his characters (and his readers) into many dangerous and bloody battles, the deeper meaning about what it means to be valiant, faithful, and true lies in the quiet moments when Tolkien’s characters share stories with each other. This becomes especially apparent in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Whether resting at The Prancing Pony inn, visiting Tom Bombadil’s house, or regaining their strength in Elven dwellings, the inhabitants of Middle Earth gather to recount their stories. Time and again, readers see that it is through the sharing of stories that they build community, affirm their true purpose and calling, reinforce their common values, and get to understand one another better.
When we observed this very thing happening also at FMC as individuals shared their stories in sermons, during Sunday School classes, and in small groups, we decided to try to extend this into this issue of MennoExpressions. We invited individuals, including the young people who graduated from high school or college this academic year, to contribute stories to this issue. While perhaps on a less epic scale than Tolkien’s tale, the stories we gathered reflect many of the ways resilience, resistance, and hope take root in ordinary lives. The graduates tell of challenges they have faced and overcome as well as the futures they envision for themselves. Marie Harnish illustrates how fabric and thread become a language of remembering and shared meaning-making. Mary Liechty reflects on the fifty-one years she and Ed journeyed with this congregation. Stan and Sandy Miller recount experiences from their volunteer service that broadened their understanding of faith and community. Jyoti Sarkar shares a story about an unexpected moment of insight that could have only been God’s working through him.
Like the inhabitants of Middle Earth, we as a community made up of people with many different perspectives and backgrounds, create a common vision through the sharing of stories of living faithfully in a fragmented world.
We hope that by reading these stories, you will be moved to think of some of the stories that are important in your own life and share them. We agree with noted literary critic Jack Zipes, who says, “The role of the storyteller is to awaken the storyteller in others,” and hope that these stories will inspire the storyteller in you, and that we can continue to share our stories with one another. Whether spoken, written, stitched into a quilt, shared around a dinner table, or recorded in the pages of MennoExpressions, stories carry the experiences, convictions, struggles, and joys that shape a community. These stories remind us that hope is not merely an idea but a lived reality—found in communities that endure, in acts of service, in creative expression, in intellectual discovery, and in the countless ways people continue to seek and find God's presence in their lives.
About the Author
Beth Goering and Andrea Krause
Part of the fun of working on MennoExpresions for us is to find a suitable workspace for our collaboration. We think we found a most fitting place to work on this issue: in "Eden," a workspace operated by the public library in the Adam & Eva Haus in Paderborn, Germany. We figured this was a particularly appropriate location for working on stories, because, after all, that’s where the story begins for us as Christians.
We hope you will enjoy reading them as much as we enjoyed collecting them and preparing to share them with you here.
