CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter
I have told this Spencer
Holst tale of the Zebra Storyteller often, but I
must tell it here again,
briefly, with my slight changes, to make sense of the rest of this column…
A monkey in the jungle
wanted to eat a zebra. But each time he swung down on his vine when he saw a
zebra coming down the jungle path, the zebra ran away before he could grab it
and eat it. So he learned Zebraic, so that when a zebra came down the path, he
could speak to it, and it would stop for a chat, and he could eat it. The other
zebras began to realize their ranks were diminishing. They asked the Zebra
Storyteller why. He knew he needed to tell a story to explain it. As he walked
down the path, he thought, “What if a monkey wanted to eat zebras? And learned
Zebraic?” just then the monkey swung down and spoke in Zebraic. The Zebra
Storyteller whirled and with one thrust of its mighty hooves kicked the monkey
clear out of the jungle, “…because that, after all, is what a storyteller is
for.”
Charlie Matson, the
director of special event adult education for St. Mark’s on the Bypass, asked
me to do a session of storytelling via Zoom, as a way of keeping church members
together, identifying with one another as church, in these isolated times when
we can’t gather together, and also just to have a good time and a few laughs,
since those are hard to come by now.
It was a nice invitation,
and I rarely get a chance to be helpful to the church or the world anymore, so
I said “yes,” without realizing how different Zoom storytelling would be.
A preacher, public
speaker, storyteller depends on feedback from listeners to know if they are
getting through. Smiles, laughs, frowns, yawns, changing positions, glances at
other people. All those tell us how we’re doing.
I don’t use notes, and
certainly not a manuscript, because if I’m note-tied, I don’t get the
reactions. I almost always leave out something that I intended to say, but it’s
a good trade-off for the immediacy I get by being able to read the eyes and
faces and bodies of my listeners.
But my forgetter is
becoming better as I age, and I thought, “Hey, nobody can see if I have some
notes propped up beside my computer as I talk on Zoom, so why not do this the
easy way?”
I had forgotten how much I
depended on the reactions of listeners to know where to go next.
And I had forgotten how
much listeners depend on others to give them clues, as to whether they’re
supposed to laugh, or clap, or stir around uneasily and look out the window. If
Maurice Manbeck laughs, everyone else will, too.
On Zoom, you get very few clues
either as the teller or as listeners. Although I suppose someone leaving his
square on the screen empty, to the kitchen to get more coffee, is a fairly
significant clue to both speaker and other listeners.
Zoom and similar programs
are great helps in keeping us in touch these days. I appreciate them. But more
than anything else, they are a reminder that we really need one another.
Others say this better,
but I need to remind myself at least: the quickest way to be able to get back
together, not as in a zoom box, darkly, or behind a mask, but face to face, is
to stay away from one another. At least six feet. No hugging. Wearing a mask,
washing hands, staying home—all good clues that we’re doing the right thing.
John Robert McFarland
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