View
The Upper Stories
Tara L. Jernigan on the Importance of Narrative in Christian Formation
My father had a special way of telling stories. Just as he never laughed at his own jokes, he never really offered to tell his stories. We always had to ask; he just primed the pump. Without looking at us, he would settle himself into his recliner. He would get comfortable, reclining back and putting his feet up. He'd light up his pipe and take a long draw from the tobacco. Only then would he ask the question, "Did I ever tell you about the time . . ."
It could be anything: the time he taught a dog to drive, the time he caught Santa Claus, the time he skipped school and got caught (and severely punished). More often than not, the stories would be about our ancestors, relics from the family tree—like my grandfather, who was an air-raid sergeant; or my grandmother, who was afraid to be at home without him during the raids; or my great-grandmother, who tried to shoot down an airplane; or my great-uncle, whose plane it was she was trying to shoot.
I always thought this sort of storytelling was normal. I grew up with it, so I assumed that everyone grew up with a storytelling daddy. The stories were fun, but at some level, we also knew to treasure them and even to memorize them for our own children. We knew who these people were and that they colored who we were, even if we didn't know how that all worked itself out. Never did it occur to us that, in being told these stories, we were experiencing anything unusual.
Connection & Disconnection
But I eventually learned that not everyone grows up with a storytelling daddy. (I was recently shocked to discover that my own cousin didn't know the stories of our shared ancestors, which my father had always delighted in telling us.) In fact, it seems that most people don't. Without someone to tell them about the people who went before, history and family become for them nothing more than a dull series of names and dates, utterly lacking in personality and life.
Is it any wonder that modern children do not know much history and feel disconnected from any sense of roots or tradition? The Civil War means so much more to my children now that they know which ancestors fought and for which side. And no tales of the American Revolution are complete for our family without our ancestors, who, being Tories, found themselves on the losing side of the war and so fled over the mountains into Kentucky. British history isn't complete without the ancestor who died at the Battle of Pinkie. And we never study the Romans without telling of our Celtic ancestors who fought them, even though we don't know their names. Just knowing that they're our people is enough to claim the story.
The Great Story
As Christians, we are uniquely called to tell and bring to life the great story of salvation history. And yet, if we don't have personal stories, how can we be equipped to share the divine story? If we have no family narrative, how can we understand that we have a meta-narrative? If we've never been drawn into the story ourselves, how can we draw others in? Fred Craddock once said that anyone who can't remember anything before the time he was born is an orphan (Preaching as Storytelling, audio CD, Bell Tower Productions, 2004). The one who has no stories has no people.
The Scriptures are, after all, the great story. So often today, Christians see the Bible as a dusty rulebook, or perhaps as a tome of lofty wisdom, but it remains far off. Even those who revere it often don't understand how to take ownership in the great story. Others know the individual stories, but not how to participate in them. They see small units, but not how they are unified into a greater whole, a singular meta-narrative told to us by the ultimate storytelling Father.
It was never intended to be this way. From the earliest moments of time, God spoke, and by his Word began the story in which we are all players. Generation by generation, he wrote in new characters and wove a more intricate story. In the fullness of time, he sent his own Son to be one of us, telling us the words of the great story through Old Testament allusions and parables, and living the life both of the storyteller and of the chief protagonist. He who was the Word by which the story was spoken, entered in and became its central figure.
Tara L. Jernigan is a vocational deacon in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and the director of deacon formation for the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh. She serves on the task force for Marriage, Family and the Single Life for the ACNA and as an adjunct instructor for Trinity School for Ministry. Tara and her husband have two sons at home and one in college.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on education from the online archives
28.5—Sept/Oct 2015
on Our Sacred Duty to Teach the Devil to Death by Marcus Johnson
24.5—Sept/Oct 2011
on Wondering or Wandering Through College Education by Anthony Esolen
26.5—Sept/Oct 2013
The Perils of Pragmatism in Christian Attitudes Toward the Liberal Arts by Robin Phillips
more from the online archives
31.6—November/December 2018
on Childhood Encounters with a Christmas Icon by Rebecca Sicree
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
