Sunday, July 15, 2012

Musing on Letters

 “Daughter,” I queried as we walked along the shore, “what’s the greatest power known to us?”

“Knowledge,” she answered.

“Good answer. Writers of the Old Testament would agree with you. What else?”

“Money.”

“Another great answer. Can you think of anything else?”

“Love.”

“I am proud of you for such thoughtful answers to this important question,” I said as we walked on.

“What do you say it is, father?”
“I think it is ‘Story.’ The Story of Christ has led to countless acts of goodness and mercy, but also mischief and murder. That Story has touched billions, and has changed the course of history. The Story Thomas Paine wrote combined with the a handful of words in which Thomas Jefferson Declared sparked the separation of child from parent and the birth of the greatest experiment in human history. The Story Charles Darwin told forever changed the way in which man looks at himself. Standing in the yawning breach, with only 271 words, Abraham Lincoln's Story stitched together the wound between the old country, and its new successor. In 1917 Vladimir Lenin became both a part of the story and the storyteller. The tide he unleashed killed tens of millions. Then there was story the French sold at that fateful treaty in Versailles, 1919 which begat the story Hitler sold his people which ended or changed forever the lives of hundreds of millions. Each of these Stories had tectonic ramifications in the history of man."

She pondered.

"So, you see, I think the greatest power in the life of man, daughter, lies in your command over letters; in your ability to craft a narrative; to tell a ‘Story.'"

The Storyteller holds in her hands the keys to the gates of both Heaven and Hell.

That is awesome power.

The wise Storyteller uses those keys judiciously.

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