Stories.

I *heart* stories.  All stories, but especially real life ones.  I love hearing funny stories, stories of depth and redemption, stories of grace, or tales of adventure. From a very young age, I have loved stories.  Whether it was listening to my parents reading me a bedtime story, thinking I had fooled my Dad to let me stay up late while he told me a story, drinking tea with my Gran while she told me of her time in Trinidad, or laying under my blankets with a flashlight in the early hours of the morning because I was totally enthralled in the story I was reading.  I used to say to a good friend of mine, "Tell me a story."  Because,... you see,... there is nothing that I love more than sitting around with a friend discussing some story that brings both tears to my eyes and laughter that bubbles up from my gut.

So, with only a day left before I complete my last course at CFOT, I find myself glad that it is a 'Human Diversity' class we are ending with.  It is some intense stuff in this intensive, and although I feel emotionally drained, I have been in my element because,... it is ALL about the stories!  We have heard or read of the stories of the experience of aboriginal people in Canada, we have heard from recent arrivals to Canada who came from a refugee camp in Uganda, we have heard the stories of children who attended residential schools, the stories of those who are discriminated against because of their sexual identity or orientation.  And I have changed because of the POWER of personal stories.


So, if there is anything I have learned or can take away from this week, it is the importance of continuing to tell the story - to never forget where we came from, to understand and respect our differences in order to look ahead to the future.  And the only way for us to maintain history or remember events is to actually listen to people's stories - to 'really' hear what they are saying, and allow these stories to change us from the inside out.

I leave you with this question, "What's your story today?"