There’s a Tracy Chapman song called Telling Stories that starts like this:

There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesn’t mean
You’re not just telling stories

How often do we hear the phrase “telling stories” to mean that you’ve made it all up rather than you’re actually relating something that happened. When I took a Landmark Forum workshop many years ago, the trainers regularly confronted individuals by saying, “that’s your story” meaning that’s what you tell yourself instead of the truth.

The way we use the word story it can mean fiction or fact. Authors pick stories out of their imaginations and hope that their skills will bring the reader into another reality. Autobiographers present the stories of their lives as accurately as they can, trying to stick to the truth, to tell their story. The most notorious exception of late is James Frey who was exposed by The Smoking Gun for making up most of his non-fiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces. The country (and Oprah) were angered and felt deceived.

As story listeners, we need to know if what we’re hearing is “just a story” (made up) or if it is a true story. Conflict abides in the space in between truth and lies: how much easier it would be if we knew the difference.

More listening and less panic will help us put Islam and Muslims in perspective.

This article is from Kathy Hansen’s blog,  A Storied Career, reprinted with her permission:

Ah, summer in Tucson, a good time to not be in Tucson. Except, of course, if you want a good deal in a restaurant or want to cruise the streets without traffic jams of students and snowbirds.

So my partner and I hit the road in the Happy Camper off to cooler climes and visited some friends in colorful Colorado. Some of the people we visited I’ve known for 40ish years so we have lots of history. And lots of stories.

We shared stories about the wonderful or sad fates of mutual friends. We could amuse ourselves all day with stories about how naive we were in the good old days. We gained insight from stories that uncovered the truth about something we didn’t really understand at the time. Sharing history with someone is really sharing our stories.

Stories on the road of course include the stories you overhear in a truck stop or at the ranger’s office from complete strangers. They are glimpses into other people’s lives that you will never see again but give you information about the human condition. Like the proud wife who told us that her 70-something year old husband had climbed all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks.  Sharing a story with someone is creating a history with them, even if it’s only a few minutes, it’s a tie with each other that can last a lifetime – in our imaginations.