Storytelling

May 12, 2026

Storytelling can be transformational.  A wisdom path.  Authors Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham say that stories are spiritual when they communicate the mystery and the miracle of being alive, [1]. 

That these types of stories touch our hearts and assist us in asking the spiritual questions, [2]. 

Stories can change the storyteller and others who have been touched by the story.  As a bookworm from early childhood, I know that I’ve been changed by transformational stories.  Even childhood stories such as The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

I’ve found meaning, inspiration, and even purpose as I’ve entered into fiction and non-fiction stories of people and creatures.  In particular stories of great love and great suffering.  The places where we are most likely to meet the Holy, [3]. 

As a spiritual guide/director I’ve had the privilege of spending time with people as they share their life stories.  I’ve heard stories from ordinary people living ordinary human lives.  What I’ve learned from these stories is that all people have times of great love and great suffering. Fully human experiences that can open us up to the Divine. 

And because of this—our life stories are not ordinary.

When a person’s story is heard and seen as sacred, when one’s story is held in a gentle and compassionate manner the storyteller, like the listener can be changed, even healed. 

Holocaust survivor, Nobel Laureate, and author Elie Wiesel invites people to tell their stories of suffering.  He says that storytellers’ suffering, shared with others, can teach the hearers to be more human, [4].  That these stories can become a bridge so that others might suffer less.  In this way the storyteller’s memories become a blessing, even redemptive, [5].  

Unlike spiritually based storytelling, propaganda is used by some leaders to tell people what they want to hear and feeds their fears, [6].  Propaganda uses contagious mesmerizing stories.  Its goal is to grow the propagandists' power and bring them other benefits.  

Wiesel says that transformational stories also can be contagious when they include not only the facts of the story, but also the context in which the story occurred, [7]. That these stories bring out emotional and physical responses in the readers/hearers, [8]. 

I’ve often found myself tearing up, getting chills up my spine and sometimes even laughing out loud during tales that involve acts of justice, care, fierce love, and human solidarity, [9]. 

Wiesel’s anecdotal understandings of stories’ capacities to bring learning and connection with other people is supported by neuroscientific research.

Researchers at Princeton University have found that the brains of listeners mirror storytellers’ brains in a process called neural coupling, [10].  In this way stories can change our brain chemistry, releasing neurochemicals such as oxytocin, which enhances our sense of empathy for others, [11].

And so, science is showing what indigenous elders have known for millennia—that we are transformed by hearing others’ stories. 

American academic and podcaster Brené Brown encourages what she calls story stewardship, that is, honouring the sacred nature of story—both the stories that we share and the ones that we hear, [12]. 

Brown invites us to be curious and affirming and believe people when they tell stories from their own experience, especially stories that are different from our own experience. 

In this way stories won't diminish the humanity of either the storyteller or the listener, [13]. 

And God knows that we need to somehow counteract certain leaders’ dehumanizing of people who they have deemed as "other." 

Telling and hearing stories of truth, love and justice can help to remind us of the dignity of all human beings and all of creation, [14].

Today’s invitations include engaging in transformational storytelling as a spiritual practice:

1.    Reflect on a story of great love or great suffering that you have recently engaged with.  Perhaps it was told through a movie, book, Scripture, documentary, podcast, poem, or some other artistic form. Here are some questions to aid your reflection:

a. Can you relate to any of the characters in the story?  Who? How, why?

b. Do you have a favourite character in the story?  Who?  Why?

c. How does the story touch your heart, mind and/or senses?

d. What has the story brought up in you? Are there places of deep resonance?  Places of dissonance?

e. Have you learned anything new from the story?

f. Does the story inspire you to some change or attitude or action?

g. Did you see/feel the Divine in the story? 

2.    Reflect on a story from your own or an ancestor’s life.  Speak it into the world in some way.  Perhaps you might tell a friend, record it, or write it down.  After speaking the story consider:

a. How did the telling of the story make you feel?

b. How did the story change and/or inspire you?

c. Did you see or feel the presence of the Holy in the story? 

d. How might the wisdom of your story assist you in imagining and/or creating a different world?

3.    Consider reading or watching a “story” from present day that is outside your own personal experience.  A story that brings you closer to goodness, justice, love and/or solidarity with others and the earth.  Perhaps it’s a story of immigrants, people who have lived through recent wars, ones who have stood up to injustices and other harms.  Reflect with the same prompts from invitation 1 above. 

Pemberton Campfire by David Loretto

1. Ernest Kurtz, Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection:  Storytelling and the Search for Meaning, Bantam Books, New York, NY, 1992, 9

2. Ibid, 8, 9.

3. Richard Rohr says that “there are only two major paths by which the human soul comes to God: the path of great love, and the one of great suffering.”  From Richard Rohr, Life Coming to a Focus:  The Path of Great Love and Great Suffering,  https://cac.org/daily-meditations/life-coming-to-a-focus-the-path-of-great-love-and-great-suffering-2020-03-20/, March 20, 2020.

4. Ariel Burger, Witness:  Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom, Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., Boston, MA, 2019, 20.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid, 32.

7. Ibid, 33.

8. Ibid.

9. These are characteristics of what Kaitlin B. Curtice says she wants to bring into her poetry and storytelling, as a way to support and encourage her Potawatomi people and its culture.  From:  How we produce healing in a world that has forgotten who we are, A conversation with author and poet Kaitlin B. Curtice, Sarah Bessey's Field Notes, https://sarahbessey.substack.com/p/kaitlin-curtice-interview, October 27, 2025.

10. Ava Hawkins, The Brain Science of Storytelling:  Finding the Connection Between Storytelling and Academics, Innovation Hub, https://blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca/innovationhub/the-brain-science-of-storytelling-finding-the-connection-between-storytelling-and-academics/#:~:text=Stories%20can%20change%20our%20brain,they%20impact%20us%20so%20strongly, April 24, 2024.

11. Ibid.

12. Brené Brown, The Practice of Story Stewardship, https://brenebrown.com/articles/2021/12/05/the-practice-of-story-stewardship/, December 5, 2021.

13. Ibid.

14. There are opportunities for learning about and entering into transformative storytelling.  For example, Gareth Higgins and the Porch Community have created retreats, groups, and learning experiences about transformative storytelling.  See:  https://www.theporchcommunity.net/order

This blog is dedicated to the memory of Maureen Fowler, a beloved spiritual mentor.