Recently, our family of eight was reassembled on vacation. At bedtime, I walked down the darkened back hallway and overheard my adult children putting their small children to sleep.
Behind one door,my grandson laughed as my son told him stories derived from tales I told him gleaned from ones my father told me. I recalled an image of him speaking at a camp chapel gathering twenty-five years ago (left) reciting parables. Today, as a trial lawyer, he knows the power of storytelling.
Behind the next door, I heard my daughter quiet-voicing her two to sleep with lullabys my wife and I used to sing to her.
Stories can bespeak Grace.
What my grandchildren heard was Love. The stories they listened to weren't coming from a television set or a video game but from the voices of their parents.
We pass down caring with our stories. Through them, we teach without instructing.
Stories matter because, like a good joke, the listener gets to appreciate what the story means to them personally.
There's usually not much Love in instructions. Rules often call for obedience, not caring. Regulations are put in place not because we trust each other but because we don't.
Nurses are told that visiting hours are over at 8:30 p.m. and may enforce that rule, not necessarily because they care about patients and families but because it's their duty to enforce policies.
There's nothing inherently wrong with rules and instructions. We all need them.
What matters is the intention behind our decisions to carry out a set of rules.
If I live Love my choice to follow guidelines helps caring. If I enforce laws unthinkingly, I am no more than a Nazi soldier obeying by rote, not by Love.
Better than either is what happens when I hear a story that illuminates Love.
The stories my grandchildren hear from their parents are a way they learn how to live.
One day, beyond my knowing, they will pass this caring onto their children. Thus, they will bring light into the world.
Right now, we can do the same. If I choose to communicate through orders, I may signal I don't trust the listener.
When I decide to share a guideline through a parable, I act in the fashion of Jesus and the prophets of other faiths. I show that I can count on the listener to appreciate what happens when the chance arrives to figure out how the stories apply in everyday life.
If you want mere obedience, shout out rules. If you want to live Love, live Love's example – and tell stories that prove it.
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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